The Part You Won't Recognize
by LucyToo
Summary: Idealogical differences threaten to divide the turtles when Raph drags his brothers in to help stop a kind of criminal they haven't faced before: a coldblooded serial killer.
1. Chapter 1

_Author's Note - My last two stories were pretty much all about the angst and the hurt. But I figure I'll never be able to top Silence angst-wise, so instead I'm going in a completely opposite direction._

_This story is going to be plot and mystery and hopefully a little bit socially relevant. It's going to have a Raphael some of you might not agree with, and it's going to have a lot more to it than Bad Guy and Torture. (Don't get me wrong, though, there WILL be angst and hurting.)  
_

_And - and this is a BIG warning - I'm subtitling this story the "Lucy is a Hypocrite" story. Because despite my intros for my first two stories, this one will contain..._

_An OC._

_Yeah. I don't really like OCs, and it's hard for me to get into stories with OCs in them, but here I am trying to write one. Sorry. Worked for the plot, and I guess I see it as a challenge, trying to involve another human into their world in a realistic way. Who knows if I can pull it off, but I'm gonna try._

_Okay, okay, enough warnings and talking. One last thing to throw in here, and then I'm getting to the prologue down there._

_My last thing - the thing that inspired this story was some absent-minded thinking at work tonight about Raph and how he's portrayed and popularly regarded by us fan types. He's a bad-ass, yeah, no doubt, but I think most people see him as a hard-rock bad-ass. You know, if he listened to music it'd be loud, pissed off, guiter-heavy screaming from long-haired dudes in leather and eye-liner._

_In my head Raph said something snide about how whiny emo wimps were whiny emo wimps no matter how loud they screamed, so. I wondered about an alternative to that. And during my break I was listening to music and a certain DMX song started blasting, and man. It clicked like whoa. Raph not as rocker, but as soldier._

_So, this. It's different, but I'm excited. The prologue's just a bit of background, but it gives you an idea what I'm talking about.  
_

* * *

Prologue

* * *

When he first found the subdivision it was the kids who drew his focus. 

That had been years ago, when they first started patrolling aboveground. At the time everything Raphael knew about humans was taught to him by Splinter, or watched on that television they had taken from a junkyard and Don had fixed up.

What he knew was the Japan of Splinter's memory and the clean, pretty, white-teeth and white-skin world on the television.

One night, though, right at the beginning, he left his brothers and went his own way. He found himself further south than he'd gone before, and seeing a world he'd never seen. People he'd never seen.

Children.

Dark-skinned, loud, in the same threadbare clothes day after day. They screamed and laughed and played music from a cassette player, they danced and kicked a ball in the street and jumped rope. They got yelled at by any adults around who spotted them wandering too far from home or coming too close to a car.

They also died.

There were sirens in the neighborhood a lot. More nights then not, as far as Raphael could see. Sometimes it was the old men who sat on building stoops and drank beer and played chess, getting carted out on stretchers. Most often it was the younger men, the ones who stood outside all night, who leaned into cars who drove past, and handed things off to the drivers.

But sometimes it was the kids. Sometimes he would hear a mother's screams before he even heard the sirens, and he would watch from the shadows or the rooftops as police gathered, medics came too late, and one less child would be jumping rope the next day.

Raph kept this violent, strange new world to himself, not telling his brothers or Splinter anything about what he saw.

He went back as often as he could get away, and simply watching the subdivision from the shadows brought him a whole new education.

Below ground he learned about ninjitsu, and spiritual enlightenment.

Above ground he learned what a drive-by was, and why the women in the short skirts went off in cars with different men every night.

Below he learned how to balance, how to stand so that no enemy could overturn him. He learned to fight blindfolded, to listen to an opponent's movements, to disarm. To fight with the same honor he lived with.

Above he learned that men had no honor. That they would kill innocent people using guns, without even getting out of their cars. That anyone could kill, and anyone could die. And that death itself wasn't grand, wasn't about honor or dishonor. It was graceless and abrupt and jarring. It didn't matter which songs a kid sang or clothes they wore, or whether their parents were the drug dealers or the teenagers who went to school in the morning and came back after nightfall in fast food uniforms. Because they all died the same way.

Below Splinter taught him about their namesakes, about art and science and culture and music. About how man could make something that was an expression of beauty, profound and lofty.

Above he learned that the most meaningful art could be spray painted on a wall one day and cleaned off the next. He learned that music could be angry, could speak about the very things he watched go on around that street. He learned that science and technology meant nothing to people who couldn't even afford to keep their lights turned on. He learned that the only ones on the block who had money to buy food and nice clothes for their kids were the ones who sold the drugs and caused the drive-bys.

Below Splinter taught them about other countries. About Japan and its history, about Europe and Africa and South America, and other places that seemed like another planet to Raph.

Above he found out that there were some people who couldn't leave the borough, much less the country. People as stuck in their limited world as Raph was stuck underground in his.

He learned about sex from watching the whores. He learned about death by watching sobbing mothers, and learned about justice by watching cops drag young man after young man away in handcuffs.

He loved Splinter. He loved his brothers. He even loved the lessons about places he would never see and things he would never be able to do.

But he fit with the poor, the disillusioned, the people who lived in the subdivision. The hood, they called it. People who couldn't worry about more than getting through a day. Who didn't know what the world outside was any more than Raph did.

He felt closer to those people, a lot of the time, than he felt to his own brothers. He grew angry for those people, and grieved for children lost. Got so frustrated sometimes by the hopelessness in the hood that he would go home and bash a punching bag long into daylight hours.

The Foot and Shredder, Triceratons and Honeycutt, Kurai and Bishop…he fought those battles as they presented themselves. He stuck by his brothers through every insane situation that came their way, and did it without resentment.

But in his heart he thought that aliens and monsters and misguided ninjas weren't where his fight should lie. That he should have been helping those people in the hood. The kids with their jump ropes who wouldn't ever finish school. The whores and the drug dealers, making the only money to be found on the street. The families, carrying on though they couldn't have had anything to aspire to. The dark-skinned, black and Latino and Arab, outcasts from the world beyond the way Raph was outcast.

Sometimes his brothers played the what-if game, and most of the time what they came back to was, _what if we were human_?

Raph knew where he would live. What he would be.

Leonardo could have the wisdom, the monks in Tibet and schools in China and Japan. Mikey could have the hot sun and beaches, California and Hawaii. Donnie could make his millions revolutionizing the world of computers and internet and artificial intelligence, or whatever it was he talked about when he used those words that made Raph's eyes glaze over.

But Raph had no illusions. He knew himself. He didn't fit with his ambitious, bright brothers. He fit with shadows, with the outcasts.

He'd live in the hood. Live and die. And maybe there wasn't any honor in that, but at least it was real.

* * *

When Leo was gone, Raph spent his nights driving the streets all over the city, helping real people. He made it to the hood now and then, put the scare on a few dealers who tried to push their way onto the turf, or blue-bandana-wearing groups who hassled the few stores near the subdivisions for protection fees. 

The worst thing about drive-bys? There was no warning. There was no call about suspicious cars, and by the time he heard over his scanner that help was needed in his hood, it was always too late.

Leo came back, and he found himself joined with his brothers, battling monsters and ancient stone warriors, and it was all just like it had been. There was no time to focus on the people who lived in his city. There were time portals to close.

It felt like abandonment.

But he and Leo fought, as they always fought, and eventually came to a sort of understanding. Raph would let Leo lead them - because he couldn't do it himself, because he got his brothers hurt. But Leo would give him some space for himself, to do his own thing.

The Nightwatcher as the papers reported him was retired, but Raph kept his eyes on the streets. He still slept the days away. He got up to practice with his brothers - mostly to keep Leo from screeching too much. He went on patrols with them. And in the last couple of hours before dawn he left them to make his own rounds.

And he almost always stopped by the subdivision. He left the whores and the dealers alone if he knew their faces and knew they weren't outsiders trying to encroach. He kept an eye out for slow-moving cars. He played guardian, if only for an hour or so. He never got close, never got involved in the lives of the people he had watched for years.

And he never meant to.


	2. Chapter 2

"Where are you going?"

Raph nearly jumped at the voice. It wasn't often he was caught by surprise. "I thought you were sleeping."

"Obviously."

Raph bristled. He squinted through the darkness of the lair's wide living room, trying to see Leo's face through the black-on-black shading.

"I don't remember being ordered to stay in tonight. I can go out whenever I want."

"Does Splinter know--"

"I go out all the damned time. He doesn't sit here trying to catch me."

Leo moved forward, falling into a dim flicker of light coming from the computer in the corner. Still shadowed, but Raph could see the light glinting off his eyes. "We didn't patrol tonight because Splinter said it was too dangerous."

"It's a little snow, for God's sake."

"It's a blizzard, Raph," Leo countered fast, without much heat. He still seemed to be a little cautious around Raph.

Which just made Raph think about having Leo on his back, on a rooftop in the rain. Breaking his weapons - and how fucking important were their weapons when they had so little money and so little access to getting replacements? Leaning over him, furious, wanting to hurt. His own brother.

That, in turn, just put him in an even worse mood.

"It's snow, Leo. Doesn't stop the frigging post office, it's not gonna stop me."

"Raph."

"What?" He fisted his hands, trying not to snap. If they woke up Splinter he'd be screwed.

"Where do you keep going?"

Raph smiled - sneered, really - and turned. "None of your business."

"Oh, for God's sake."

And there it was. That pinched, prissy tone that shot through Raph like the high screech of a blade grinding against a sharpening stone.

Raph turned back and marched towards his brother, ignoring it when Leo backed up a half step before he caught himself.

"Listen, Leo." His finger came out, jabbing at Leo's plastron. "You had all kinds of time on your own, doing your own thing. He gave you a year. You took two. I want a couple of hours a night, and I don't see you have any right to argue with me. So stop hiding out in here trying to catch me like we're still ten and you can't want to go running to Splinter when I break a lamp."

Leo was cautious, but he was still Leo. He still tensed at Raph's words and met his glare with a glower of his own. "If you still want to act like a rebellious kid, that's how you're going to get treated."

"Oh, fuck off, Leo. I do everything you ask me to do. I got a right to do my own thing too."

Leo folded his arms over his chest. "You do everything but respect me."

Raph rolled his eyes and turned away, heading for the door.

"Sometimes I doubt you even want to be part of this family anymore."

"Oh, listen to the pot calling names. At least when I leave I come back the next day." Raph laughed, glancing back from the doorway. "Go to bed, Leo."

"You know, Raph, I--"

"I don't care." Raph spoke, each word bitten off. "Go to bed."

Leo didn't speak again. Raph turned and walked out of the lair.

* * *

He was an interfering shithead. But it wasn't anything new.

Raph did recognize that the snow created something of a problem. The ground being coated in white shone a lot of light, making the city as bright as if it were still sunset. The shadows gleamed bright, and he stood out easily.

But the roofs were still safe.

It was a slower trip than usual - the cold made the ladders and grips slick. But Raph wasn't an idiot. He knew how to handle himself.

_It's a blizzard, Raph._

Condescending jerk. How Leo thought he could get away with saying Raph was so dumb he didn't know how to deal with snow, Raph couldn't figure.

How he thought that was in any way good leadership was beyond Raph.

In the townhouse-lined streets he passed over, everything was still and silent. White and soft. Tomorrow the snow would be slush, dirty and grey and cursed by the people who tromped the beauty out of it. But tonight, this late, it was untouched and still nice.

The closer Raph got to his own neighborhood, though, the louder things got. There were some places where life didn't stop for something like snow.

It didn't stop, but it changed.

That was one reason why he wanted to go out that night, despite the cold and the precarious trip.

Deep in Brooklyn there were divisions from one neighborhood to the next so extreme that a person could walk one block and find themselves in a completely different world from where they started.

Things were dilapidated. Old. Storefront after storefront closed down, with cardboard and spraypaint announcing some business's demise. Building after building had gates over the doors and wood covering the windows. Rotted and falling apart, sitting around waiting. For nothing.

But there were times when the place came to life. Raph had seen it now and then, and it was something he couldn't keep himself away from.

The neighborhood threw barbeques now and then, every couple of months or so. He'd see little wilted paper flyers on the telephone poles and know one was coming, and he'd get there to watch it. Times when everyone stood outside, blasting music and eating and drinking and laughing. The smells were amazing, and everyone seemed to shake off the despair and the clouds for just an evening.

He knew tonight would be the same way. The snow, still fresh and white. It brought out the children, as late into the night as they could stand it.

He made his way from roof to roof, leaving wide prints in the snow, looking behind now and then just to make sure his meddling brother hadn't done something unforgivable, like follow him out there.

And then he heard the sounds of the children, screaming laughter.

He slowed his run, breathless and cold, free on his rooftops and wide awake from the ice his lungs kept bringing into his body. He darted across the roof he was on, leapt easily onto the next, and eased quietly to the edge to look down.

He smiled to himself.

The dealers weren't out. Not as dealers. Instead of waiting for passing cars they stood with beers in hand in the doorways to their buildings, talking and watching the kids in the middle of the streets.

Raph watched for a while, hands wrapped around the ledge of the roof.

What was it like to be so delighted by something? The kids never got enough of it. They threw it, rolled around in it. Made great big balls and stacked them, putting lopsided faces made from bottle caps and cardboard. They'd put planks in the sides, like arms, and once the little snow heaps were as much like a man as they could be, one of the kids would come running and dive into it, knocking the whole thing on its side.

And they'd do it all again.

When Raph was young he had memories of solemn lessons with Splinter. Of sleeping curled into his brothers because it got so cold. Exploring tunnels with Splinter's supervision, laughing and falling and calling it fun.

What would they have done with snow? If they could have seen it stretched across a road like this, wide and waiting to be played in.

Mikey would have dived in. He'd have tormented his brothers with snowballs, giggling and shivering and not even noticing the cold. Donnie probably would have built the snowmen, making perfect, precise little statues with shells on their backs.

Leo?

Hell, Raph didn't know anymore. All he could think was that Leo would stand around disapproving of the frivolity. But then, he realized that his view of Leo was a little harsher than it had to be.

No, Leo would probably play with Mike, or help Don. Or build little forts like the kids there sometimes did. Something useful. Something Splinter would pat him on the head for.

Raph couldn't place himself there. Unless he was the laughing punk who barreled into the snowmen and turned them into piles of shapeless white.

Maybe he'd never been innocent enough to just play in the snow.

He leaned in and watched the people below. They weren't innocent either. Not any of them. Even those kids had buried friends and parents, seen dads carted to jail and moms driven off to fuck any stranger with a spare twenty bucks.

But they found innocence on nights like this.

He looked out on faces he recognized. He didn't know names, wouldn't know the sounds of their voices, but he knew their faces. He'd seen some of them come up from teenagers. Some of those kids had been born with him hanging around. He buried some of them.

He watched until his hands were numb and the band around his eyes had stiffened in the cold. He watched until the kids got called in one or two at a time, promising to meet the next day if schools were closed.

Until only a couple of kids were left out there, looking frosty in old, worn coats. No one stood watching them. A couple of the old folks from the nearest buildings sat in their windows, keeping an eye out. But that's what they did in that neighborhood. Everyone watched everyone.

Raph wondered about them. He knew the kids. Their mother was in school herself. She lived with another woman - her mother, Raph thought. Sometimes she went out at night and worked on the corner with the other women. She was a tiny thing, though. She looked like a teenager. Might've still been one for all he knew.

But she was usually around for her kids.

He watched the kids playing, watched their energy sap fast once the others had gone in. He looked down the block towards the building they lived in.

Something wasn't right.

He had to stretch his cold muscles before he made his way across the roof and jumped to the fire escape the next building over. He scaled it fast and moved until he was near to their building.

No lights on in their apartment. But the girl wouldn't have gone anywhere with her mom at work and her kids out in the snow.

Raph debated, but he didn't have much option. There wasn't any good way to cross the street to her building with the snow reflecting the street lamps so brightly.

He made the choice to go back and keep his eye on the kids until someone took them inside.

But he only made it one rooftop over when he heard the familiar wrench of a woman screaming.


	3. Chapter 3

The sound of a mother kneeling over the body of her child screaming her grief and denial was one of the most darkly haunting sounds he had ever heard.

It was a different kind of scream than a person in pain gives, or a person who's scared. There was something primal about it, something that got into his gut and stayed there, scratching at him for hours afterwards like an echo that followed him around.

He had heard it before. Mostly in that neighborhood. But that night it stung especially hard.

Her name was Michelle, he found out. The girl, the mother of those little kids, the daughter of that screaming mother. They called her Chelle.

And she hadn't been shot.

Raph hadn't been able to get too close - her mother found Chelle in the alley between a couple of the buildings on the other side of the street. But he could plainly see the red gash across her throat, the blood that soaked her shirt until it froze.

She had been there for a while. Dressed for a night of work, she must've been hoping to make a few dollars while her kids were safely out with so many neighbors.

Instead she ended up half-covered in snow, found by her mother on her way in from work.

He stayed long enough for the police to arrive, and for neighbors to lead Chelle's mother and two kids away. They would take care of the family, Raph knew. And the medics would take care of Chelle.

Nothing left for him to do.

He made the trip back slowly, thinking about absolutely nothing as he moved the familiar path towards their lair.

Tragedy hit the hood all the damned time. He'd seen every form of it. It was part of life there. The people were used to it. They grieved, yeah, louder and more openly than the self-conscious middle-class of their city. But they weren't surprised.

Still.

He wasn't prepared for it. That was what hit so hard. He had gone there not to make a patrol, not to safeguard his people there. He went to watch the kids play in the snow. He hadn't been ready for the screams and the sirens.

Once he made it downtown, closer to his lair, he slowed his journey even more. He moved on the edge of the rooftops, looking out at the people below.

There weren't many. Snow and the early hour kept most indoors. There were cars filling the streets. But out on the sidewalks there wasn't much sign of life.

The people downtown walked in that particularly New York way. Fast, eyes ahead. Shoulders forward, stride firm. They broadcasted the aura of somewhere-to-go. Made it clear that they wouldn't stop for anyone, be distracted by anything. Someone dead in an alley? None of their business.

Raph appreciated the attitude. It wasn't as heartless as outsiders regarded it. New York was too crowded, too crammed with people and pressure. Making eye contact with someone could make them snap. Stopping for a cry for help most likely led to an ambush by clever thieves.

It wasn't about self-importance. It was about self-protection.

Still, it was funny to see how different they moved, these people and the people in the East New York section of Brooklyn.

The sun was sending a pale grey cast over the city by the time he went underground again. Morning. Time for sleep.

He doubted he'd get much.

He tromped the turns and dips to the lair without having to think about where he was going.

When he slid the door open, he was greeted by the sound of the television.

"Hey! Raph, you just getting home?"

He blinked at Mike, who was wearing that ridiculous chef apron and beating the life out of a bowl of eggs.

Don sat on the couch, watching the morning news.

"What the hell are you doing up so early?"

Don shot him a look, a small smile. "Leo wants us to do some early morning runs in the tunnels. Woke both of us up a few minutes ago. I guess you got back just in time." There was a question in his eyes.

Raph ignored it. "Tell Leo he's a jerk, and I'm going to bed."

"Our agreement," came Leo's voice from the door to the dojo, "is for you to train with us."

Raph turned to face him. He drew a breath, let it out. Getting pissed off wouldn't help anything.

Then again, when had that ever stopped him?

"Screw you, Leo. You're doing this to get back at me for last night, and it's stupid. I'm not going along with it."

"Maybe if you had stayed around to hear me out instead of storming off like a baby, I could have told you I planned this already."

Raph moved towards his bedroom. "Whatever. I'm going to bed."

"If you start missing training you can't go out at night. That's the deal."

"Fuck the deal!" He spun, facing Leo. Anger that had been simmering in him for hours, since the first sounds of screams, bubbled instantly white-hot. "For Christ's sake, Leo! Are you even capable of acting like a brother, or do you have to play this team-leader role every frigging minute?"

Leo blinked.

"You accused me of not wanting to be part of this family?" Raph sneered. "You don't even know what a family is. We're nothing to you if we're not playing privates in Leonardo's army. I've had enough. I'm allowed to do whatever the hell I want to do, and if you want to try and stop me, feel free. We both remember how that ended last time."

Leo winced.

Raph felt a moment's regret. He'd made a conscious decision never to bring that up. Never to be the kind of asshole who rubbed in that he won a fight, especially when that fight ended with his brother being taken and nearly killed.

He hadn't meant to do any of this. He didn't want to fight. He wanted to shut himself up and stew in everything that had happened.

Instead he was watching his proud brother avert his eyes and drop his head, stung into silence.

And the worst part was, he couldn't apologize. He just couldn't. It would seem like he was admitting being wrong, and he wasn't wrong.

Just a little callous, that's all.

"Raphael."

Shit. Shit, shit.

He turned. "Splinter, I--"

"You would speak to your brother that way? In our home?" Splinter's eyes were sharp enough to sting. His hand clenched around the end of his cane hard enough to tremble.

Really pissed. Shit.

Raph blew out a breath. "I just--"

"In. Now." Splinter's finger aimed back into his room.

Raph dropped his head, rubbing at his face. "I'm sorry, okay? Can it--"

"I gave you an order."

His feet moved in instant response. Raph trudged past Don, whose eyes were carefully glued to the screen of the TV, and Mike, whose cooking was much more sedate than it had been.

And Leo, still in the doorway to the dojo.

He glanced over as he passed.

There was nothing smug in Leo's face. Just a glittering emotion he couldn't place.

Raph moved through the door into Splinter's wide meditation room. He stood, slumped and expectant, listening to the sound of the cane and Splinter's feet shuffling him inside.

The door thumped closed behind him.

He lifted his head and waited, at least respectful enough to stay silent until Splinter spoke.

But Splinter didn't speak, not for a long minute. He moved around Raph to the mat and kneeled, slow and gingerly.

Raph stood, still, eyes ahead.

He felt Splinter's eyes on him, felt the focus he was being given. The seconds ticked by, loud as his own heartbeat in his ears.

When Splinter finally spoke, his words were even and low. "I have begun to wonder if I shouldn't give up on you, Raphael."

Raph blinked in shock. His eyes snapped down to Splinter.

Splinter looked up at him, calm suddenly. "I have talked and talked to you, so many times through the years that I have lost count. I have taught you about the poison of anger. I have counseled you as best I could, and yet nothing ever changes. You learn nothing. Every time I begin to make strides…" His eyes went to the side.

Raph, tense and tight, followed his gaze. The shelves. His Nightwatcher helmet. The one he had put there himself, voluntarily.

He looked back at Splinter.

"Every time you take steps in the right direction," Splinter said, "you follow with such a big leap backwards that I think you prefer being angry. And if that's the case, I ought to give up the lesson. It's true that there are things that can't be taught if a student doesn't have the beginnings of the lesson inside them already."

It was a blow worse than any Leo could have dealt with his fists. Raph would have rather been tied to a chair and helpless while Leo got a chance to wail on him than stand there and listen to his father speak as if he had no hope.

Splinter sighed. "You have my permission to miss this training session. I believe you wouldn't allow yourself to learn from it anyway." He gave a nod, deep and formal.

Dismissing him.

Raph stared down at the top of Splinter's head. His breathing was shallower suddenly.

He backed up to the door, and left.

His brothers sat at the table, eating Mike's eggs. They looked over when he came out, and Don's quiet words halted.

Raph looked at them, at Leo.

Leo looked away, back to his plate. He ate quietly.

* * *

Chelle's funeral was at a church somewhere in the city he couldn't get to.

He never went to the funerals. There was nowhere to hide in a cemetery. And no point, really, in intruding on something like that. He was a big enough spy as it was.

He did come by that evening, watching Chelle's house. Another gathering, black-clad neighbors and dishes full of food, quiet talk and angry words and tears.

Her mom looked like she was holding up pretty well, actually. The kids stayed close to her, and Raph imagined they were some kind of comfort. Hell, Chelle's mother was young enough to be their mother. She couldn't have been more than forty. Maybe younger. Raising them wouldn't be too hard.

He stayed across the street, watching people come and go. In the building next door a lot of the older people were gathered, tense and talking loudly.

These people were angry.

There was always a simmer of anger there, and it was well-earned. But this anger was more immediate.

A young girl murdered in a new way, a way that might not have had anything to do with the constant flow of drugs in and out, or the gambling, or the gang battles. They were angry, and Raph wished like hell he could put his armor on and drive up and talk to them. Find out what they knew, or who they suspected.

He wanted to hunt the bastard down.

Down the street from Chelle's house, there was a much smaller hum of activity around another of the worn-down brownstones. A lot of the mourners were making the trek over, going upstairs and coming down, milling on the porch in a small group.

He made his way over, going from roof to roof easily. He knew those buildings so well he could have done it blindfolded.

Upstairs the lights were all on in one apartment. A familiar couple, an old man and woman, were sitting in view of the window, greeting their visitors, shaking hands. Solemn.

Raph knew that house. One of the other girls who worked at night lived there with her grandparents. A chubby, woman in her twenties who laughed a lot with her friends. Loud and confident. He didn't know her name, but he'd know her on sight.

She wasn't there. Hadn't been part of the crowd at Chelle's house.

Raph frowned to himself, his instinct flaring. Solemn people, absent girl.

Had someone else died? Maybe the last couple of nights, when Raph had tried avoiding his solitary patrols?

What were the odds of that? Two girls who lived down the street from each other turning up dead so close together.

Was it a drive-by, or something else? Something like what happened the Chelle?

He didn't like mysteries. He watched the house, trying to figure out if his instincts were leading him wrong or not.

And then he turned and started, fast, the long way back to his lair.


	4. Chapter 4

"Oh, come on! You fucking irritating box and your irritating--"

"Raph."

He glowered back at Don.

Don didn't bother to hide his amusement. With an eyebrow arched he moved up behind Raph. "Yelling at it is remarkably ineffective."

Raph scowled at the screen. "Well? How do you make it work?"

Don reached over him. "What're you trying to do?" He pushed a couple of buttons on the keyboard, and the screen lit up. "It's password protected," he explained with a smile.

"In case the Foot return and sneak in here one day to spy on what websites you go to?" Raph's voice was sharp.

Don just chuckled. "Mostly to keep you and Mikey from doing irreparable harm. You didn't answer me - what're you trying to do?"

"I just wanna look some stuff up."

"Like what?"

Raph glared back at him.

Don smiled. "Drop the attitude and tell me. I can help."

"Go back to your tv shows and leave me alone."

"Oh, scary. What're you looking for?"

"Donnie--" Raph stopped, his eyes going past his brother to the TV Don had abandoned. The news was on again - no surprise since Don was watching it.

But with a jerk he realized he recognized the woman on screen. She was _his_.

He shot out of the chair and past Donnie, grabbing the remote on his way to the couch and turning up the volume.

"--to know who did this to my family."

Chelle's mother.

He had left her a couple of hours ago with her neighbors. This must've been filmed earlier. That was probably the cemetery behind her.

"The police claim nothing out of the ordinary is going on in East New York. Do you have a message for them?"

Chelle's mother closed her eyes and looked away, looking ready to break down again.

Beside her was another woman, dark-skinned, young, familiar to Raph though he couldn't place her.

She was staring at the reporter, dark-eyed and angry. "Yeah, we have a message. What you see here is the fifth funeral for a young woman East New York has seen in the last two months."

Raph sat up, surprised. Fifth? There must have been some outside the subdivision too.

The young woman - _family friend_, the words beneath her read - kept going, her voice low and intense. "Maybe some parts of this city have more than their share of drugs and violence. But when the police say that five girls murdered in eight weeks is 'nothing out of the ordinary' something's really wrong. These girls were people. Most left behind young children. Since when can anyone see that happening and shrug their shoulders at it?"

The scene cut off, switching to two people sitting at a desk.

"Some angry feelings in Brooklyn tonight," spoke one of them, a tan man with hair so neat it might've been a helmet. "Our own April O'Neil spoke to Borough President Marty Markowitz. April?"

Raph's eyes gleamed as they cut to April, in the studio.

An inside source. He should have thought of April sooner.

"Dan, the attitude coming from city hall seems to be as dismissive as the reaction from police. I spoke to Mr. Markowitz over the phone earlier today, and his response to the complaints of the citizens in his borough came in the form of statistics - homicides in East New York, gang violence on the rise. He went on to say, and I quote, 'It's unfortunate that some neighborhoods haven't seen the dip in crime that most of Brooklyn has seen the last few years.'" She looked at the camera, and Raph knew her well enough to see the edge in her eyes. "It seems the only people worried about these murders are the ones directly related to the victims. Paul?"

Raph sat back, tuning them out as April left the screen and the two anchors moved to another story.

"Something tells me you weren't watching that to see April."

Raph looked over. He'd forgotten Don was hanging around.

Don studied him, curious.

Raph stood up. "I need to use the phone."

* * *

He didn't know what to say to Leo. He showed up at training that day without complaint, he went on his evening patrol and slept through until dinner the nest day. He didn't exchange words with Leo once. 

Leo spoke to him as a leader. 'Raph, try it with Mikey first.' Or 'Raph, raise your elbow.' Nothing more. Nothing real.

It was almost peaceful. Training went more smoothly, and neither of them got pissed. If it hadn't been so awkward it would have been nice.

Raph caught Splinter watching part of their session in the dojo the next day, as they ran through drills with each other's weapons. Always a good precaution: as hectic as their fights sometimes got, it wasn't hard to imagine being disarmed and getting hold of another brother's weapon.

Raph noticed Splinter as he was working, awkwardly, with Don's bo. Leo and Don stood by, giving pointers he didn't acknowledge.

Splinter returned his gaze with a look simmered in disappointment. He turned and left the doorway without saying a word to them.

Raph grit his teeth and tried the same move for the seventh time, and heard Leo sigh in frustration.

He growled and straightened from his stance. He tossed the bo to Don and moved to the door.

"Raph, you're not finished."

"Yeah. I am." It was the first thing Raph said directly to Leo all day. He didn't even say it in anger - Splinter should've been frigging proud. "Screw this."

Well, maybe not proud exactly.

"_Damn_ it," he heard Leo mutter as he stormed towards the door.

It wasn't the words, it was…the frustration, maybe, in Leo's tone that made Raph hesitate and look back.

Leo had taken the bo, looking like he wanted to break it in half.

Raph let out a breath. "Leo. I'll try it again. I just...I gotta make a call and it's getting late topside, and…I'll be better after a break. Okay?"

Leo returned his gaze, then nodded once. "Go."

Raph left the dojo and went to the phone near Donnie's computer table.

He didn't get it. He'd been the same way since he was a kid. He'd never pretended to be cheerful or patient or focused, why did they constantly seem surprised when he didn't magically turn into that guy?

He sighed and shook the thoughts away, and tugged a slip of paper from where he'd tucked it into his wristband. Glancing back to make sure the living room was empty, he dialed the number April had given him.

After a few rings came a harried female voice. "Hello?"

He cleared his throat. "Uh. I'm looking for Kate Fadillah?"

"Got her."

He leaned his shell against the wall, keeping his eye on the dojo and Splinter's room. "You were the one on the news yesterday with Chelle's mom, right?"

"Who is this?"

He couldn't help a faint smirk. That was a good question, and he hadn't come up with a suitable answer yet.

So he avoided it. "April O'Neil gave me this number. I wanted to get some info about what's going on down there."

There was a pause. Sounds of motion from the other side of the line. "April did a lot for us, talking them into broadcasting a story - even if it was kind of short. I guess I can return the favor. What do you want to know?"

"Everything." He couldn't help but remember Chelle's mom, her puffy eyes. Her screams. "When did this start happening?"

"Two months ago." Kate spoke fast, as if she'd been holding onto her answers for a long time just waiting to be asked the questions. "One of the girls working MLK was found in a dumpster with her throat cut. She was the first one, as far as I know. Though there was a girl who went missing a couple of weeks before that." She paused.

He blinked. "I'm listening."

"I guess I was waiting for you to say that girls go missing from East New York all the time. Sorry." There were more thumps and shifting sounds from her end. "Okay, next came Rosa Pelligrino. Another working girl, and she was gone a couple of days before they found her off Avenue K. Mind if I ask what your interest is in this?"

Raph sighed. "I'm a concerned citizen." Wasn't that the phrase April always used? "I…uh. I used to spend a lot of time on the street where Chelle lived."

"Chelle and LaShandra both."

Raph frowned. LaShandra. That must've been the other girl's name. "She's dead too?"

"Found her two days ago. Before Chelle was even in the ground."

"Shit."

"Exactly." Kate sighed. "The cops say there's nothing to link the crimes. Nothing but all the girls working when they were killed, all of them with throats cut open. All of them in East New York. I don't know how those things aren't links, but."

April had told him as much already. The cops seemed apathetic at best, and there wasn't so much as a suspect to start working from. Even April was angry over it, but the press wasn't any more interested in dead whores than the cops were.

April talked her station into giving them the one story, and met Kate Fadillah through phone calls to family members of the victims. Kate seemed to be acting as spokesman for the neighborhood.

"The last I heard they were blaming Rosa's death on some old boyfriend she had a kid with, but they had so little proof of that they let him walk. Which leaves them with nothing, and us with even less."

Raph looked up as the door to the dojo opened.

Mike peeked out, gesturing him to come in.

Raph waved him away, lowering his voice. "Nobody from the neighborhood saw anything? I know how people keep their eyes open around there."

She sighed. "Nothing so far. Whoever this is, they're sneaky. Look, Mr…"

He made a face as Mikey kept trying to get his attention. "Raphael."

"Raphael. I appreciate the concern. I'm sorry if you knew the girls who got killed. But I've got to drive across the bridge and back tonight and I've got to get going. Is there anything else I can tell you?"

Raph turned his back on Mike. "Tell me how to help."

There was a pause, and even the sounds of motioned ceased. "You mean that?"

"Yes."

She laughed, a breath of sound in his ear. "I've been waiting for someone to ask me that. But unfortunately if you don't have a TV station or a newspaper or a squad of cops in your pocket, there isn't much anyone can do."

"What about the other girls?"

"We're looking out for each other." She paused. "Who knows, maybe that will actually help."

"We? You're…?" He stopped, clearing his throat.

"What? A hooker?" She gave another chuckle, low and bitter. "Why do you think no one will listen to me?"


	5. Chapter 5

There was definitely a different feel to the neighborhood the next few times he made it out there. More faces in the windows. More of the girls were in groups. Less people were out who weren't working.

Things felt edgy and tense. But he knew the girls had no real choice. They still had to eat, so they had to work.

He was an extra good boy back at home so he could get out more often. He and Leo still weren't really talking - Raph assumed Leo was waiting for him to apologize, and that just wasn't happening. But Raph went through the training, went miles through the tunnels, patrolled the streets with his brothers.

He got out to the hood late when he got there at all, and he'd end up staying until the sun threatened, just so he could keep an eye out.

He slept daylight away.

When he was allowed.

"Raph?"

Which wasn't often.

He blinked an eye open, muttering.

"Raph? Ra-a-a-phie?"

"You think I won't throw you through a wall, Mike?" He rolled on his side away from the door.

Mike seemed to take words as an invitation to come in. He was on the bed a moment later, dropping like a stone and rocking Raph. "Hey! Leo was thinking we could do something fun tonight. We haven't gone sewerboarding in a while. Wanna?"

Raph rolled his eyes and dropped back on his shell, glowering at his brother. Sewerboarding meant taking one of Mike's trash-heap-recovered bodyboards and sliding around a few feet at a time through six inches of sludge.

Still. It actually was kind of fun.

He sighed. "Can't. Got places to go."

"Great! We'll do that instead." Mike grinned, reaching out and tapping on Raph's arm. "Where we going?"

"Mike."

"Come on! All the times you're gone, you must know some kick-ass spot. Don't wanna share with your brothers?"

Raph tried to roll away.

Mike grabbed his arm, shoving him back onto his back hard. "Stay."

Raph frowned. "Jesus, Mike--"

But Mike wasn't smiling anymore. "Jesus yourself. You can't have things both ways, Raph."

"What are you--"

"You want to bitch Leo out in front of everyone for not knowing how to act like we're family, but you keep everything that matters to you quiet." Mike met his eyes. "You can't refuse to give us a chance then get ticked off because we're not some perfect family."

Raph sighed.

Mike grinned again, instant and bright. "Sewerboarding, then?"

* * *

"April!" Mikey's shouted greeting was the first warning he had.

They were filthy, tired. Raph had even tried to enjoy himself, taking his turns on the board, tolerating the laughter when he inevitably fell on his face like the other three.

Mindless, and Mikey kept up enough talking so that Raph didn't really have to say much. All in all, it wasn't a bad way to spend an evening.

He moved in past Leo and Mikey, and grinned at the look April gave them as they tromped in one after the other.

"What in the world have you guys been doing?"

"Training," Don answered solemnly, feet slurping with mud as he moved up to join them. "Uh, wanna grab us a few towels?"

"You're going to need more than towels." But she moved back to their bathroom and came back with a pile.

"So what brings you here?" Leo asked as they scrubbed themselves off.

"Raph, actually."

He looked up instantly. "Yeah? What's up?"

"You remember that story you called me about? East New York?"

Any trace of a smile faded. "Yeah."

"I thought you might be interested - they found another body."

"What?" He nearly dropped his towel, staring at her. Another one?

Jesus, it was only days since LaShandra.

"Tonight?"

"Right before sundown. I got a call from Kate Fadillah, but I can't talk the station into sending me out there."

"Son of a bitch!"

"What are you two talking about? What story? What bodies?"

Raph ignored Leo, slinging his towel into Mike's hands. "I gotta go, guys."

"Raph, hang on a minute."

He actually spared a moment to look at Leo. "April can fill you in." She wouldn't tell them much. She didn't know much. "I really have to go."

Leo frowned.

Raph itched to run, but he waited. Trying to show his brother the respect he apparently was so bad at showing normally.

"I don't like this. What have you not told us about?"

"Leo, just…I'll tell you later."

"We'll come with you."

"No! Leo, give me a break here!"

Leo stared at him, expectant.

Raph's patience shattered. "To hell with you, then." He turned and headed out of the lair, taking the tunnel at a run.

* * *

The police were gone. A small yellow-taped spot marked where the body had been found, just one block away from the street he knew so well.

It wasn't one of his families, but that didn't matter.

He perched on the corner of the roof, looking down on the huddle of working girls whose faces he all knew.

They were still out there, still dressed in their ragged, skin-baring outfits. But they were quiet. Wary.

He squinted down at them, seeing light reflecting off something strung around their necks, something each of them was wearing.

He recognized what they were after a moment, and he smiled grimly.

Whistles.

His girls weren't stupid.

He crouched down, his eyes scanning from building to building, trying to pierce the shadows.

They would probably be safe that night. Whoever was killing these girls at least waited a matter of days in between victims, and he'd already killed that day.

But he might be around. Watching.

He had to know the neighborhood. He had to be able to come and go without being noticed, since there wasn't any mention of any strange figures lurking around.

Raph would find him. If he had to spend every night out there, spend every day fighting with Leo and Splinter, he could catch this guy.

A car turned the corner onto his street. Slow-moving.

Drive-by.

He straightened, standing tall on the corner of the building.

But the car flashed headlights, and the girls on the corner saw it and stayed right where they were.

So, no drive-by. Something going on he didn't know about.

The car drove slowly down the street. Faces on either side looked out as they passed. Grim.

A patrol.

He relaxed, another grim smile touching his face. His hood would take care of itself. If the police didn't want to help, they'd become their own police.

Damned straight.

The car stopped suddenly, in the middle of the street, and the passenger door flew open. "Up there!"

A finger pointed up at the roof. At Raph's roof.

At Raph.

Shit.

He'd been standing too openly. He dropped off the ledge onto the roof, but almost paused when he recognized the person from the car.

That was Kate Fadillah, with the same anger in her face that she'd had on the news when he first saw her.

He backed up fast, and sprinted across the roof and over to the next building.

It would take anyone who didn't know the roofs well a few minutes to follow him. He had plenty of time to get away.

He almost didn't want too, though. Three roofs over he stopped and looked behind, saw flashlights moving across the roof he'd been standing on.

He frowned, annoyed at himself for getting spotted. Moving to the side of the building, he looked over the side.

Would they watch the roofs from now on? Damn it.

"Stop!"

A light shone on him suddenly, and he squinted and hesitated. Blinking down, he saw the same girl, Kate, standing between the two buildings.

"Stop right there!"

He dropped back enough so she wouldn't get any definite sight of him. But he didn't run.

"Get back here! I've got a gun, you maniac."

He squinted over the roof. She was holding something, but his eyes were too well trained to think it was a gun.

Even so, he didn't try to get away. "Hang on a second. I'm not who you think I am."

"No? Get down here and let me decide!"

He hesitated. He could have gotten away fast. He could have just jumped and kept going.

Seemed like a cruel thing to do to the hood, though, leaving them thinking they had their guy and let him slip.

He spoke loudly down to her. "I'm not a killer."

"Yeah? Who are you? Some tourist who gets his kicks on rooftops?"

He hesitated.

Weighing his options and their consequences had never been his strong point. Leo would've just vanished into the night. Raph?

"I know who you are, Kate." He stayed right where he was. "My name's Raphael. I talked to you on the phone."

"Rapha…wait. April O'Neil's…?"

There was a moment's silence. He watched her, unable to make out her expression. Her head swung to look down the block, in the direction they'd come from. Indecisive.

"Look, I promise I'm not here to hurt anyone. I heard about what happened earlier, and I was just…checking on things."

She looked up again, her flashlight glaring in his face. "Come down here if you're harmless."

"Uh. Not the best idea, lady."

"Yeah, right. How about this - get down here or I'll blow this whistle and get a dozen guys who pack more then enough heat to get you down."

He hesitated, pondering. "I come down you call off the manhunt?"

There was another pause.

She raised the whistle to her mouth, and before he could stop her she blew two quick, shrill whistles.

He tensed, ready to jump and tear out of there. He knew her threat hadn't been idle - the guys down there would shoot and ask questions later.

She let the whistle drop to her chest. "There. It's all called off. Your turn."

He looked back, saw people gathering in the street away from the building she'd first seen him.

His eyes went back to her silhouette. "Who was it they found?"

"What?"

"Earlier. April told me they found another girl."

She was still. "Marquella Smith."

He frowned.

"She lives on third. With her kids. And if I figure out you had anything to do with--"

"I didn't."

"I'm supposed to believe a man who won't face me?"

He wanted to feel annoyed, but it was a pretty legitimate point. "Turn the flashlight off."

She hesitated, but a moment later it clicked off, and darkness filled the space instantly.

He jumped onto the ledge. "This is probably a mistake," he grumbled to himself.

"What? What are you--" She cut off with a gasp when he jumped.

He caught the ledge of the second floor window and pushed off to land lightly on his feet in the snow.

"Holy…" She fumbled for her flashlight.

"Don't. Trust me on this, okay?"

She hesitated, squinting in his direction. "Who are you?"

"I already told you."

"Right. A concerned citizen." She moved forward a few steps, losing the light from the street. "I still have a gun, you know."

He smirked. "We both know there's no gun."

She froze then, as if hearing some note in his voice that scared her. "Fine. I got a neighborhood full of pissed off thugs twenty feet away. And you know that's real."

"I'm not trying to trick you." He raised his hands, knowing she'd at least catch the gist of the gesture in the darkness. "I'm just saying you don't need threats. I'm serious. I know the people here. I just wanted to help."

"Uh huh. So why the darkness and the rooftops?"

He thought fast. "You…uh. You remember the Nightwatcher?"

She moved in closer, but was still far enough so he didn't get tense. "Yeah. Some guy playing hero. He came around a few times, but that was months ago. He doesn't come around anymore."

"He does." Raph shrugged. "Just not in the open."

"You're not saying you're him."

"Yeah, that's what I'm saying. I used to be him, anyway. He's retired, at least in that form."

"Prove it." She moved towards him again, but in the challenge of her words was something new, and bright. Like hope.

He backed up a little, positioned himself so he could spring up to the second floor if she got too close. "How?"

"What did he ever do for this neighborhood? I know the papers didn't write about it - they don't like writing about places like this. So you tell me."

"Okay. Uh, I think the first guy I chased off was this lowlife and the group of guys he used to hit up the stores, and the girls on the street, trying to get protection money. What'd they call him? Dirty D, something like that."

She froze.

He couldn't see her face, but he had to think she was paying more attention suddenly. "Next I think was that gang, the Pumas or the Tigers or whatever the hell they called themselves. No, wait. Between them there was this shithead creep hitting up the old folks around here on the day the pensions came in. That guy was a pleasure to kick around."

"Oh my God."

He smiled faintly. "Yeah. Well. Wasn't enough, I guess, but I had a whole city to see to."

Her face was still lost to the shadows, but he could hear the startled hope in her voice. "It's enough. It's…what made you come here at all? _Nobody_ comes here."

He spoke honestly. "I meant it when I said I've come around a lot. I kind of grew up on these roofs, watching the people here. The people on sixth, anyway. That was…my street."

It felt awkward saying it out loud. He'd never put a name to it before. Never wondered about why he kept going back. He just did.

"You're serious, aren't you?"

He nodded. "I'm serious."

She kept inching forward, as if drawn. "But…why…" She blew out a breath. "Why? Why watch people like us? Why watch anyone from rooftops in the dark?"

"You really want to know?"

"I really do, yeah."

Leo would kill him. Seriously come in and just murder him in his sleep. But hell, counting April and Casey, and random victims they returned purses and wallets to, and other mad scientists or criminals they'd come across, there were more than a few humans who knew about them.

Besides, what was the fun of being the rash one if he couldn't flash people now and then?

He drew in a breath. "Alright. Go ahead with the flashlight."

She looked down at her hand as if she'd forgotten it was there. A flick of her finger sent light beaming, and she raised the beam towards him.

He ducked his eyes, squinting, tense. But he stood there and waited.

"Oh."

He grinned. "Yeah, pretty much."

She moved in, just a dark shadow behind the white light. "Are you…what…oh."

He shrugged. There it was.

She laughed, soft and surprised. "I guess this explains why the Nightwatcher wore full leather armor in the middle of July in New York."

Raph grimaced. "Worst part of the gig, actually."

"I'm not surprised." She lowered the light, close enough now that he could see the glimmer of wide eyes. "I'm not crazy, am I? We're both talking about the fact that you're…shaped like a big turtle."

He looked down at himself, gesturing. "Kinda hard to miss. I'm just glad you didn't scream."

She laughed, wonder in her face as she drew in close enough to turn off the flashlight and still study him.

"Yo, Kate!"

She jumped, turning.

Raph tensed and readied to jump. One person was fine, but he didn't need random panicking strangers seeing him.

Kate reached out and touched his arm. "Wait." She pitched her voice loud. "I'm okay, T. I'll be right there." She looked back, and her eyes went to her hand as if amazed at what she was doing.

But the smile on her face, almost as awed as a child, faded into sudden seriousness. Her gaze lifted to meet his.

"You mean what you told me on the phone? You really want to help?"

He nodded. "That's what I'm here for. I can't be here all the time - not during the day, for obvious reasons. But I'll come back every damned night if I can."

She smiled suddenly, her eyes bright with something besides wonder. "Come on, then."

"Come…what?"

"Come on. They'll be glad to meet you."

"No way in hell." He gently removed her hand from his arm. "No offense, but we've got this thing about being seen by--"

"You've been watching this street for years and you don't want to say hi?"

He hesitated. His throat felt suddenly dry to hear her put it like that. "I can't."

"Look…Raphael, right?"

He nodded.

She smiled, but a shadow of the determination that had been in her face on TV talking to that reporter was showing itself. "You've been watching, so you know what's happening here. These people…we need something. We need to know someone's looking out for us. Trust me, they'll want to meet you."

It was harder, but. He shook his head. "It's not that I don't want to, it's just--"

"Yeah." She held her hand up in surrender. "Okay. But people are on their guard right now, and dark figures on the rooftops are kinda suspect. Can I tell them about you at least?"

He tried to imagine what Leo would say to that, but gave up after a second.

Screw it. "Yeah, sure."

She grinned suddenly, crooked and wide. "Can I tell them you're a big green turtle man?"

He laughed. "Hey, if you don't mind them thinking you're crazy."

"I've got to go back." She hesitated, studying him all over again. "Jesus. Uh…look, you still have my number?"

"Yeah."

"The people here…we're trying to do for yourselves, however we can." Her smile faded. "But I'm sure you have some ideas we're not thinking of. We could use advice."

He nodded. "I'll call. Tomorrow."

"Thanks." She glanced back. "Alright. I…people are tense right now, so staying gone down alleys isn't a good thing to do."

"Yeah. Go on."

"Can you…" She nodded up towards the roofs.

He grinned, and with just a beat to brace himself he pushed up, springing high enough to grab the bottom of the window ledge. One simple flip got him up on the ledge, and he grinned down at her. "Yeah, I'll manage."

She was round-eyed. "Huh. Yeah. Okay. Well…it was nice to meet you. I think."

He chuckled to himself. Maybe Leo would kill him - if Leo ever found out - but he didn't feel too wrong about introducing himself. "You too."

She backed up, but before she turned she hesitated. "Hey. Raphael?"

He looked down at her, perched as steadily as a gargoyle.

She smiled. "Thanks."


	6. Chapter 6

Mikey had been hooked on TV since the moment Donnie got their first junkyard set to work. He loved everything about it, no matter how ridiculous some of the stuff on there was.

He loved humans. He was enthralled by everything they did and said, and how they looked and the clothes they wore.

When he hit a certain age he started noticing the women on the TV. He'd point out one woman or another as being hot, and ask his brothers which type they liked best. They'd have a lot of hushed, giggly, red-faced talks about hair color and breast size, in that brief period when they were old enough to appreciate females and still too young to realize how useless it was to talk about it.

Raph never had much part in those talks.

Human females never did much for him. They were soft-skinned, pink and thin and spindly things that looked like they'd break too easily. He grew up a turtle raised by a rat - whatever attraction he might have naturally had for whatever species simply wasn't there.

When they met April and got to know her, and every one of his brothers made their share of comments about what a babe she was, Raph started to figure he just wasn't meant to be interested in humans. Maybe he missed that little slight in the mutation process.

He watched them a lot, of course - real people, not Mikey's TV babes. He watched the working girls in their tiny clothes get into cars. He saw through windows sometimes as a couple would greet each other, hug, kiss.

It seemed nice enough for them. It wasn't like he couldn't see the appeal.

It was just…different. Humans were too damned different, and he didn't see them the way his brothers did.

When he got home that night, though, after cutting his patrol short due to actually being seen and talking to someone, he found Mike and Don still up, watching TV.

They waved their hellos, and he went over to see they were in the middle of one of those silly plotless people-on-a-beach shows. Not a lot of dialogue, and a lot of weird close-ups on various body parts.

He leaned against the couch and watched for a minute. "Don, you realize this is rotting your mind, right? You keep staring so hard you're gonna end up as brainless as Mikey."

Don chuckled over Mikey's absently-outraged 'hey!'. "It's good for what it is. Anyway, there's nothing else on this late." He sent Raph a grin over his shoulder. "You should see what they've got on the internet sometime. Makes this look downright religious."

Mikey turned to him, eyes round. "Really?"

"Pervert." Raph knocked Mike on the head with a loose fist and pushed off the couch. He headed for his room.

"Aw, come on, Raph. Sit down and eat some of this nasty popcorn Donnie the genius can't figure out how to make without burning. There's another episode coming on next."

Raph glanced back. "No thanks. Not my thing. Night, guys."

Don waved without taking his eyes off the TV.

Before he shut the door Raph heard Mikey's voice, quiet but still audible. "Sometimes I wonder if Raph's even got a 'thing'."

He smirked and slid his door shut, but as he made the trek over to his bed - a few extra hours of sleep were probably necessary at that point - he thought about it.

Nah, humans had never been his thing.

But he was stuck in a world without alternatives. Triceratons and aliens and robots and various other animal-shaped mutants came and went without stirring much interest. And it wasn't like he had some fetish for normal turtles. There just didn't seem to be much point wanting that part of life. No one fit with him.

He pulled the wrinkled paper with Kate's number on it out of his wristband as he peeled the bands off to sleep.

Weird to even think about, really.

He and his brothers weren't meant for it. They could watch all the TV they wanted, make jokes, admire April even while she settled down with the first human she met through them. They could watch and wonder, but that's all it would ever be.

* * *

Leo looked up when he walked in. His face, so carefully blank every time he trained, instantly hardened when he saw who had invaded.

"Raph."

Raph didn't so much as tense at the clipped-off sound of his name on Leo's lips. He cleared his throat, willed himself to stay nice and calm and level. "Yeah, hey."

He left the door open in case he needed a quick escape. He moved in onto the mat, fighting back a yawn. Even with the extra sleep, he was still dragging a little when he woke up.

He stood for a moment, awkward. "Look, I got a favor to ask."

Leo's eyes narrowed. "Of course you do."

Raph's shoulders tensed right up, but he rolled them out with a grimace. "I'm trying to keep things civil here," he said stiffly.

"Right. When you're asking for a favor." Leo's arms crossed.

Raph nearly turned and walked out.

He had to take a breath, to think about the street and the groups of scared girls who would be walking it that night. "I need to get out of training tonight."

Leo's mouth curled up, and his brows rose. "Not allowed."

"I know it's not allowed, that's why it's a favor." He was talking through his teeth already. Bad sign. Shit.

He curled his hand in a fist, but that just came off looking worse. He shook it out.

"Okay." Breathe in. Breathe out. Patient and mature. "Look. I've got something to do, and it's important. I'm asking for you to give me one night." He sucked in a breath, and shut his eyes for a moment, bracing himself. "Please."

Leo's quiet chuckle made his eyes open again. "Well, well. The great Raphael, saying please. Begging for favors. Looks like the tables have turned."

Before Raph could leap across the room and punch him in the mouth, a throat cleared behind him.

For once it didn't make his heart sink to see Splinter standing there.

Splinter returned his gaze with a nod. "Raphael, I am proud to see you asking this favor so humbly. You may go where you will this evening. Please give me a moment to speak to your brother."

"Thanks, Master Splinter." It was all Raph could do not to stick his tongue out at Leo, who was looking decidedly less smug as Raph left the room and shut the door.

He went right over to the phone, a smile rising on his face with every step. Imagine, him doing the mature thing and Leo getting bitched out.

About damned time, really.

He grabbed the phone and dialed out, tucking Kate's number back into his wristband once it started ringing.

Behind him were the muted, unintelligible sounds of a rising voice.

He chuckled.

"Hello?"

His grin didn't fade. "Kate?"

"Yeah? Oh, hey! Raphael?"

He leaned back against the wall. "Reporting in as ordered."

"Well, that's not exactly what I meant when--"

"I know." He watched the door to the dojo open and Splinter emerge. He was quick to stifle his shit-eating grin when Splinter glanced his way, instead giving his sensei a bow of the head. "I'm going to be out there tonight."

"I'm glad to hear it. I've mentioned you a few times, and you should see the hope on people's faces when I bring up the Nightwatcher."

He couldn't help a smile at that.

He'd done his motorcycle-and-armor gig for a while, chasing down lowlifes and spending all his time on the streets. He did a lot, but in a place as big as New York, even that kind of thing got lost fast.

He'd had moments when he thought he wasn't making any kind of difference at all.

So it was nice to think that just the name the papers had made up for him brought some hope to people.

Don emerged from his room and plodded to the kitchen, giving Raph a look and a nod as he past.

Raph lowered his voice. "Okay. So you want advice, right?"

"Right." She sounded more formal suddenly, as if she really was seeking council from a superhero instead of just talking on the phone to a big turtle man, or however she'd phrased it the night before. "Anything you can offer us would be welcome."

He watched the dojo door, but saw no movement. Leo must've been seething hard enough to rupture blood vessels in his brain.

He told himself to forget Leo, concentrate on the more serious issues.

"I could tell last night you've already got some kind of strategy. What've you planned already?"

"Not much. A few of the men on the block offered to drive around at night and keep their eyes open. That's as far ahead as we've thought." She sighed. "We don't exactly know how to protect ourselves from this kind of thing. The few pieces of advice I'm getting come from guys who learned everything they know playing Tekken or watching Scarface, so I'm having a hard time finding the good ideas."

He chuckled. "Those whistles the girls had last night. That's a good idea. You've already got a code going with them?" He remembered the two-blast whistle she gave the night before, that stopped the search for a mysterious person on a rooftop.

"Just the basics. Whistle like hell if you need help, and whistle twice quick if it's a false alarm. That's all I could come up with."

"Your idea, huh?"

"The whistles? Yeah." She sounded almost shy. "Someone had to do something."

"You chose well. Just make sure every girl out there has one."

Don passed by again with a steaming mug in his hands. Coffee. Must've been planning a late night.

Raph made a note to make some himself before he left. "Okay. What else? I know most of the men who drive up are regulars. You should start up a system where none of the girls go with a stranger without telling someone else who can get a look at the guy first."

"Right. We can do that. Anything else?"

He frowned. If he wasn't in the toilet with Leo he'd ask his advice. "Let me get back to you. Any chance you can tell me where all the girls were found? We should get an idea how spread out this guy's getting."

"If you want to meet me, I can drive you around so you can see the places for yourself."

His mouth quirked up instantly. "Yeah. Sure. I'll make sure to cover up."

"We can wait until dark." She hesitated. "Raphael…"

"Raph'll do."

"Raph." She cleared her throat.

He waited, pretty sure he knew what was coming.

It came a moment later, with a puff of a sigh in his ear. "I'm sorry, it's probably rude or something, but I've gotta know. Are there…I mean…"

"Three brothers just like me, and a giant rat that raised us."

A beat, and then she laughed. "Sorry. You must be sick of people reacting to you that way."

He thought about it. "Actually, most people just say something about how weird the costume is."

"I'll try to keep any more questions to myself."

"Don't hurt yourself on my account."

"Wait. A giant rat?"

He grinned, shooting a look towards Splinter's room. No matter how cool people reacted about him and his brothers, Splinter always knocked them flat.


	7. Chapter 7

He was almost out.

Just a few more steps, with no one in sight and no sounds outside his brothers' rooms. So close to getting out.

Hand on the door.

Almost free, and without a single argument or big-eyed Mikey look meant to induce guilt.

"Raphael."

Shit.

He would have cursed out loud if the voice had belonged to anyone but Splinter. He turned, hand still hopeful on the door.

Splinter gestured him to come.

Damn it.

His hand dropped.

He moved back from the door. It was early, at least. Sunset would still be blazing smoggy in the sky topside. He didn't have to be late, yet.

He followed Splinter into his rooms.

Splinter didn't kneel or make him wait. "I want to speak to you about your brother."

Raph felt his spine stiffen. "What's he saying I did this time?"

Splinter regarded him.

Raph shut his mouth, trying not to fidget or look at the door or in any way seem impatient. Splinter picked up on that kind of thing fast.

"Raphael, things are not easy for you and your brothers. I know that. You grow older, you've seen much of the world. But still you remain stuck here, with only each other for company. It would be a strain for any family." Splinter sat then, lowering himself carefully into his chair.

It was easy to forget that Splinter was so old. He was still formidable - every time he opened his mouth he crackled with strength. But his body was tired, and it showed sometimes.

"In the human world, things are different. With other families, arguments are had. A brother who feels distant from his family can go freely. He would have friends more like him than his brothers. He would have space. But we are different. We must be different." Splinter hesitated.

Raph shifted uncertainly. "Look, if this is about me and Leo, we just…we get like this sometimes."

"No, my son. Ever since Leonardo's return you have been like this constantly."

Raph opened his mouth, but shut it after a moment's thought.

It was the truth.

"The four of you have no one but me and each other, and a pair of human friends who bring what relief they can. But when we fight amongst ourselves, there is nowhere to run for escape. No one to vent to. No one whose place in our lives might bring relief and ease the tension back home. We have each other only."

Raph sighed. "Yeah. I know."

"I had no guidance for raising the four of you. I knew nothing about parenting when I found you. I knew the training I learned from my master, and that's all. I have no doubt that as a parent I could be found guilty of making more than a few errors."

Raph frowned. It wasn't like Splinter to mention any self-doubts to any of them.

Splinter went on, thoughtful and slow. "You are alone in this world, and none of my sons feels that as acutely as you do, Raphael. Yet there is one who deserves the feeling more, and that is Leonardo."

Raph's mouth twitched.

Splinter watched him. "I took a boy, a teenager, one who had only his three brothers to relate to, and I estranged him from them by calling him leader and placing him in charge. I made his position difficult, but I hoped that his brothers would aide him."

Raph dropped his eyes. He knew what was coming.

Splinter was ten times more poisonous than Mikey when he wanted someone to feel guilty.

"Michelangelo and Donatello have risen as I hoped they would. They are quite able to treat Leonardo as both a leader and a brother. You, on the other hand--"

He burst in before he could stop himself. "It's not my fault, Master Splinter. He treats me like--"

"Raphael."

"But he does. Ever since you made that choice, he's acted like it gives him the right to--"

"Raphael!" A snap of his low voice.

Raph shut up, but his eyes went resentfully past Splinter to the wall.

"You will listen to my words."

Raph didn't argue. He didn't move.

"Leonardo is a fair leader. Do you think I haven't paid attention? He is responsible, grave. It isn't fair what I asked of him, but he has risen to my hopes time and again. He has guided you through a great many dangers, and you have all survived."

Raph stayed silent, even though he could sense Splinter waiting for something. Waiting for him to agree that Leo was good at what he did.

Splinter sighed after a moment. "Every time you argue with your brother, it forces him further from you. It forces him to take the role I gave him, to distance himself from the only three creatures on this planet like him. You refuse to see the weight on his shoulders, but you should. You craved his position for so long, and resented him for getting it. Resented me, perhaps, for giving it to him."

Another pause. If Splinter was waiting for an argument, he wasn't going to get it.

"If nothing else, you should admit to yourself that if you had truly been put in charge and you were confronted with such defiance as you show Leonardo every day, I suspect I would only have three sons left by now."

Raph humphed. "Why's that? You would've given up on me before now, is that it?"

Another small sigh. "I would never give up on you. It's true, I have almost given up the idea that you can learn some of the things I try so hard to teach you, but you will always be my son. No matter what you do."

Raph's chest gave a little squeeze, a little easing of a fear he had carried around with him since his last private talk with Splinter.

Splinter met his eyes. "Don't you understand? I would never give up, and neither will Leonardo. None of your brothers would ever stop caring for you. Which is why your attitude is as hurtful as it is. You constantly strike out at those who would never try to escape you. There is cruelty in that."

"Damn it." The words leaked out, but Raph didn't take them back. He met Splinter's gaze, frustration catching his voice. "What am I supposed to do? You think I don't realize every one of you wants me to be different? I do. It's like every morning you wake up hoping I'll be someone else, and when I'm not you get so disappointed. You think I don't see that?"

Splinter stood then. There was surprise in his face. "Raphael, you misunderstand."

"No. I don't. You may not mean to put it that way, but that's what's going on. I'm not like Mikey or Don, or Leo. I'm pissed off a lot of the time, and I don't try to hide it. That's all this is about. Yeah, Leo's the one who brings it out most, but it's always here, Splinter. Every minute of every damned day. You think I wouldn't push it away if I could? It's just who I am."

"That is sheer laziness talking," Splinter answered, his voice sharp.

"Laziness?" Raph stared at him, incredulous.

"Anger isn't a personality trait, Raphael. It is an emotion. A response. Perhaps you are sensitive to things in a way different from your brothers, but how you respond to that, and even how you display your anger when it must be expressed, those are choices you make."

Splinter shook his head, his eyes simmering. "You let your initial reactions carry you away. You make no effort to understand what angers you, or to learn why you feel angry so often. You simply explode time and time again, with no regard for the fallout your explosions leave behind."

Raphael looked away, fists pressed to his sides.

Splinter paused, and when he spoke again his voice was low. "We do not wish you were someone different, Raphael. We don't wish for someone new to wake up in your place. We wish…"

"What?" Raph's voice was thick.

"We wish you would grow up."

* * *

"Right over there."

Raph followed her finger, looking out at the unfamiliar corner. "Where?"

Kate's voice was pinched. "The dumpster."

Raph looked.

A deserted building, trash strewn everywhere. Bullet holes pocked the wood that covered the windows. And beside it, looking like it had been years since any trash collectors had even thought about the place, sat a small, overflowing dumpster.

It was desolate and depressing, and he looked away after a moment. "Where would she have been working?"

Kate put the car into drive. "It's just a block or so down."

They rode in silence. It was dark, but Raph pulled the hat further over his face as they passed people on the streets.

It was funny. The people there looked just like the people he knew so well, just a few streets down.

That's what the city was, though, wasn't it? The same thing block after block. The same people, the same problems. The same bullets and drugs and girls. Dice games and music blasting.

No wonder their killer didn't stick with any one area. It must have all felt the same to him.

"Here." They slowed, and Kate nodded towards a corner. A couple of girls stood talking, and they could have been any girl from his street.

He sighed. "Alright. What about the next one?"

"Chelle."

"Oh." He frowned and sat back, resting his head against the back of the seat. Her car was small and old, and the ride was jumpy and uneven. But he felt so weighed down he hardly felt it.

She waited, and a moment later they got into motion again.

When they turned onto his street he sat up, looking out the window in new interest. The corner, the little patch of grass on the end of the row of public housing.

He had never seen it from the ground. He saw the guys on the stoop of 1241 and he smiled faintly when he heard the music, the flow of words that came out of their mouths. They could stand there for hours rapping, but he'd never been close enough to hear what they said.

Kate cleared her throat. "There's Chelle's building."

His smile faded. He looked up, and easily found the window he knew had been Chelle's. The lights were on - her mother, probably sitting with the kids. How did she work now, without Chelle there to watch the kids half the day?

"That's where I lived, actually."

He looked over, saw her pointing across the street.

He frowned. "You lived on this block?"

"Grew up here." She sent him something like a smile, though on her dark features it was shadowed and hard to read. "Until four years ago. My father got arrested, and--"

He sat up, placing the building with a glimmer from his memory. "That's why you look familiar! I knew from the minute I saw you on the news, I just couldn't place you!"

She waited, eyebrows raised.

He grinned. "You're Andy the Arab's daughter!"

He remembered her, faintly. She'd been younger, a scrawny girl with short-cropped curly hair.

Andy was put away for heavier stuff than usual in that block - they said he shot a cop, and he wouldn't get out of jail in his lifetime. That was the only reason Raph actually knew the man's name: he had made the papers. Though they'd probably given his full name, but Raph remembered him by the nickname the street gave for him.

He was still in jail. His wife….

Raph thought back. His wife was a heavy woman, with nearly black skin and a booming, accented voice. One of those voices he could pick out from his roof, even without knowing the details behind it. And their little girl.

Kate Fadillah. He shook his head, amazed. "What happened to your mother?"

She smiled. "Everyone remembers mamma. Even Nightwatchers. She died a few years ago."

His grin faded. "Oh. Hell."

Kate looked out the windshield. "She was visiting family. She died in Nigeria, which she would have chosen for herself. The streets didn't get her, at least." She glanced back at him, offered a smile. "I still live downstairs from her brothers, the same place they moved us to after dad got put away."

Raph shook his head, studying her. He could see it, really. Her black hair had grown, but the curl was still thick in it. She had Andy the Arab's long nose, and her mother's full mouth. Her skin was closer to her mother's, but a paler brown.

He felt strangely close to her, now that he could place her on his block in his memory. She was one of his after all.

She smiled faintly the longer he looked. "What?"

He grinned. "I'm trying to imagine your mother naming her daughter Kate. It's kinda…"

She laughed. "Khadijah, actually. Khadijah Nini al-Jamil Faddilah."

He blinked.

"Dad wanted to stay true to his roots. But mom thought I might want to blend in more, so she called me Kate. Whitened me up, dad would say." She shrugged.

"I kinda like the long version," he said with a smile, flipping the name around in his head. It was different. Different was something a mutant turtle named after a dead Italian painter could relate to.

"Me too, now that I'm older." She shrugged. "When I was a kid I liked Kate. I liked straightening my hair and trying to hide the fact that my dad wasn't black." She met his eyes, smiling wryly. "Figures now that I'm old enough to appreciate the name, everyone's used to calling me Kate. And just when I'm old enough to appreciate my dad he's locked up."

"You still talk to him?"

"Sometimes. I drive to Riker's maybe once every couple of months. I didn't, not for the first couple of years after he got arrested. I was so pissed off at what he'd done."

Raph hesitated, sensing hazardous ground. "Did he…?"

She sighed. "Yeah. He did. Shot the man even after he knew it was a cop. He deserves prison. A lot of people around here who get picked up don't deserve it, but he did."

"But you still go see him?" Raph tried to wonder what his reaction would be if one of his brothers committed some horrible crime.

Pretty much too absurd to think about.

She hesitated before she answered. "He's my dad."

Yeah. He figured that's what he'd say, too. Even now, when things were about as rotten in the lair as they could get, he'd have still done anything for any one of them. Even Leo.

"You can't pick your family," she said after a moment, breaking the silence. "But you have to be there for them."

"Even when it's harder to be there than it would be to leave?" He heard himself speak the words and felt something like surprise.

He wouldn't leave them. Not unless…

Unless they wanted him gone. Which, okay, maybe he felt like they did lately. Maybe he thought they'd be better off.

But he didn't really take those thoughts seriously. Did he?

She nodded out the window, at the corner he was so used to watching from the rooftops. "A lot of us around here, we got nothing. No money, no future. No real education. No hope. No nothing. All you have when you're born into this is the people around you. Love them or hate them, they're yours. And when you can't say anything else in the world is yours, that comes to mean a whole lot."

He studied her as she spoke. Her eyes were out the window, her profile silhouetted against the street lights.

"Yeah." He spoke finally, breathing out. "I guess."

She turned to him then. "Family problems?"

He shrugged.

"Hard to imagine, actually," she said, studying him.

He had a flash of self-awareness - big turtle in a trench coat and hat, sitting in her car. He grimaced. "You don't think animals can have issues?"

She laughed. "No, I mean…" Her laugh cut off when she realized he was serious. She nudged his arm. "Hey. Seriously. I just meant it's hard to imagine the Nightwatcher on that big-ass bike coming home to get bitched out by his dad."

He managed a smirk. Some days that was pretty much the truth, though Splinter hadn't known exactly what he was bitching Raph out for.

"So is that close, or should I stop speculating?"

"No, it's close." He lifted the edge of his hat, shrugging. "But I'd be a shit talking to someone with a dead mother and a dad in jail, bitching because my brother's a pain in the ass and my father wants me to be someone I'm not."

"No, not a shit." She gestured out the window. "Look around. There's a thousand people in this part of town worse off than me. If we all shut up about our problems just 'cause someone else has it worse, we'd be a lot of quiet-ass folks down here."

Raph blinked, and laughed. "Didn't think of it that way."

She smiled, shrugged. "Look, Raph. Everybody's got their own problems. Me, I can't imagine anyone who raised someone to go out and do what you do could be disappointed at all."

His grin faded. "Yeah, well. It's surprisingly easy for them. Then again, we've all done pretty big things. The Nightwatcher? He wasn't impressive to them. He was…sloppy. Rash." He thought about it, realized with a smile he was being unfair. "No. One of my brothers did think it was a big deal. But…not the others."

"Huh." She sat back, drumming her fingers on the steering wheel. "Well, hell, you invite them down here anytime, and there's a neighborhood of folks waiting to have your back. You do good down here. And…I don't know, maybe down here isn't where they're trying to be, but it's still something special."

Raph sent her a smile. "Might take you up on that someday. If I decide they're worth the effort. Pains in my ass, really."

"That's family for you." She laughed.

It cut off when a song started playing, tinny and muffled. She tugged out a cell phone and flipped it open. "Hey, T."

Her eyes went to Raph as she listened, and she lost her grin. "Uh. Yeah. Nothing to worry about. I'm just gonna run to Third and I'll come get you."

She hung up after a minute, and for a moment just stared ahead. "You know, I actually forgot for a few minutes why we were here."

Raph glanced around. The streets. The girls.

Damn it.

"It is getting late," he said with a sigh, reluctant to leave his street behind now that he was seeing it from the ground.

She shifted the car into gear and jerkily got them moving. "Just tell me where to drop you off so you can do your rooftop thing."


	8. Chapter 8

_Author's Note - I know Leo's come across badly in this so far, but hey. It's from Raph's POV, and he's not the most generous guy towards his bro. Hopefully this chapter makes up for that a little bit._

_I'm getting a lot of reviews speculating on what's gonna happen. No doubt I'll let a lot of you down - I don't even know where it's headed yet, besides a few scenes that are pretty clear in my mind. (Though, Tri, I think your theories are going a bit darker than my story's headed. Heh. I'm trying to be easy on the angst here, remember? But you were right about how his brothers are all making attempts to help him. He's just not seeing the offers for what they are.)_

_There's something else Raph doesn't quite realise about what he's doing in his hood. Something that's gonna drive a nice new wedge between he and Leo. See if you can guess what that is. :-D_

_Right. Enough from me._

* * *

Leo barely managed a grimace when he looked up to see who was walking into his room. 

Raph hesitated, awkward in the doorway. "Uh."

"You don't have to ask. We're not training tonight."

"Yeah." Raph shut the door behind him. "Donnie just told me. I, uh. You know. Wanted to make sure you weren't dying or something."

He grinned.

It faded fast.

Leo looked away. Sitting cross-legged on his bed, he might have been trying to meditate. But Raph didn't think so.

"I'm not dying," he said finally.

"Right." Raph tapped his finger against his leg. "Uh. Good?"

"If you want I'll tell Splinter how noble and concerned you are. No need to stick around and strain yourself."

Raph frowned.

Well, he was thick and self-centered and immature - to listen to Splinter - sometimes, but he wasn't dumb enough not to see something was wrong here.

He moved in.

Leo looked back at the footsteps. His expressionless face didn't change in the slightest. "Something else you want?"

"Why are you acting like an asshole?"

"An asshole." Leo didn't raise his voice. He just repeated the words, thoughtful.

Raph grinned awkwardly. "Yeah. All moody like this. If you want to be more like me just ask."

Leo sighed, but didn't allow his sloppy attempt at humor. "Raph. Go out and do whatever you want."

"Oh, I will. I just wanna know why--"

"Because sometimes I need a break too, okay?"

Raph blinked. Alright. There was a flash of temper there. That was an improvement.

He hesitated.

Leo sat, tense and grimacing at the wall. Raph couldn't look at him and pinpoint a problem like he could do with Mikey, and sometimes Don. Hell, he wasn't sure he knew his brother at all after the years he was gone.

Helping with problems wasn't his thing even in the best of times. Unless those problems could be helped by kicking some punk's ass.

Some punk besides Leo, anyway.

But he knew something was wrong, and he heard an echo in his mind from a conversation the night before. '_Can't pick your family,_' Kate had said. '_But you have to be there for them_.'

He sighed to himself. Being there wasn't something he knew how to do. Maybe he'd find Mikey and send him in. Tag-team Leo's bad mood.

He backed up. "Fine. Whatever. See ya, Leo."

He hadn't even made it to the door before Leo spoke, his voice edged.

"You're being the Nightwatcher again."

Raph glanced back, surprised. "What?"

"Aren't you?" Leo's eyes were on him. "Isn't that where you're going every night? Isn't that why you won't tell us anything or let us go with you?"

Raph hesitated. "I'm not…"

Leo's eyes burned into him.

"Not really," Raph tried again. Because technically he kind of was. Going out to help people was the Nightwatcher's thing.

He hadn't thought about it like that, though. He'd considered it was just…just him, going out and keeping watch. That street didn't belong to the Nightwatcher. It was Raph's.

He regarded Leo, trying to figure out how to explain it.

But Leo looked away, his mouth twisting, and Raph saw something on his face that stopped his search for words in its tracks.

"Wait a minute."

Leo's shoulders went back.

"You're jealous!"

Leo made a face. But he didn't argue.

Didn't deny it.

Raph moved to the bed, hardly thinking about it, and dropped to sit. "What the hell, Leo?"

"This conversation's over."

"Like hell it is! You're jealous of the Nightwatcher! You have been this whole time, haven't you?"

"No." Leo answered that fast enough. "Not the whole time. Just…"

"Just once you realized it was me."

Leo puffed out a sigh, looking away. "Why won't you leave me alone? You never want to hang around me any other time."

"Because!" Raph found himself grinning. "This is too good to walk away from."

"Why?" Leo's legs uncrossed and he sat up, piercing Raph with a glare. "Why is it good? Why is it even a surprise? You think I don't want to be out there helping too? You think I like sticking close to the lair, looking out for Foot and Purple Dragons and aliens, ignoring everything else that's going on?"

Raph shrugged, fascinated, watching Leo's face.

"You know…" Leo hesitated suddenly. His eyes landed on Raph, as if having instant second thoughts about telling him anything.

Raph wiped his face of any smile. "What?" he asked, serious.

Leo shook his head. "Forget it."

"Leo."

"No. Forget it. You don't care. You want to go be on your own, fine. Do it. I know how…damn it."

"How what?"

"I know how it feels!" Leo stood up suddenly, pacing away from him across his small room. "Why do you think I was gone so long? I was on my own out there, Raph! It was supposed to be a test to see how far I could get, where I could go and what I could do without being seen or caught. I traveled everywhere. The first few months, all I did was train. And then…"

Raph nodded. "Then you realized you could do more."

"Without anyone to argue with me, without anyone in danger from following my lead." Leo stopped against the far wall, turning to face Raph with a glitter in his eyes. "I could help people. I could do whatever I wanted. If I saw someone trying to rob, or rape, or kill, I could stop them any damned way I wanted to. There were no brothers to set examples for, no Splinter to try to impress."

Raph sat back, shell against the wall as he listened.

He wished he was more shocked, really. The response he understood perfectly. Only that it was Perfect Leonardo saying the words came as any surprise at all.

Leo started pacing again. "That first year ended and I was still in South America, and I remember…I went and found a little airstrip. I could have gotten on one of the cargo planes heading north. I stood and stared at it and just thought about it. About coming home to Splinter's lessons and your attitude and Don and Mikey doing anything I tell them, trusting without a doubt that I'd get them home safe at the end of the night. And I don't know which one of those bothered me more."

Raph drew his legs up, staying carefully quiet. Leo didn't open up a lot, and he shut down again fast if given any chance.

Leo let out a breath, looking towards the door. Still shut, no extra listeners. No Splinter sneaking around to catch them fighting.

"It's not that I don't like it here," he said, his words slowed by thought. "I was honored when Splinter chose me to be in charge. I know you wanted it, and I know he almost gave it to you."

"I doubt that," Raph said under his breath.

"No. He did. He thought maybe responsibility would dampen your rashness." Leo shrugged. "He told me as much when he made his choice. But in the end he didn't want to risk it. So he chose me, the perfect and obedient."

"Yeah, that I've heard before."

Leo moved back to the bed, dropping to sit. "Raph. I wish you could have it sometimes. When I was out there on my own…I knew exactly how you felt. Suddenly I could see rashness for what it was - enthusiasm. Excitement. Seeing something wrong and jumping to fix it without having to consider the consequences."

Raph nodded slowly. He'd never thought to put words to it before, but it sounded about right. "I never understood any other way of doing things. I mean…you see someone holding a gun, you stop 'em. You don't duck back and talk over plans and give them time to shoot someone."

"When you work with a team, you have to." Leo shrugged. "Otherwise you've got four of us jumping into things at once, and what that'd most likely lead to is one of us getting shot."

"Maybe." Raph studied him. "Maybe that's why I do better on my own. I don't think in those kinda terms."

"And I always do."

"Yeah."

Leo sighed. "Yeah. And I really don't mind it. The pressure Splinter puts on me to be perfect, I welcome it. It makes me sharper at everything. And having you guys there…scares the hell out of me, because if a mistake takes one of you down it's all on me. But it's also the only way it's ever felt right to fight. I never would've stayed gone forever. Even if April hadn't tracked me down, I would have come back. This is where I belong. It's just…"

"Living my life for a while felt good, huh?"

Leo smiled, faint. "Yeah, I guess it did. You know…" He grinned suddenly, more sincere. "I had a reputation most of the places I went. In Central America they called me the ghost of the jungle. Know what they called me in Brazil?"

Raph shrugged. "Something Brazilian?"

Leo grinned. "_Protetor da noite_." He met Raph's eyes. "Protector of the Night."

Raph laughed. "So you don't have to be jealous of the Nightwatcher, cause you were him for those people."

"For a while." Leo sighed. "And it was good. What I did was good. Hard to give up."

"Yeah. It is."

Leo sent him a level gaze. "I got caught up, and I forgot to come back home and be the dutiful son. But you of all people shouldn't be allowed to hate me for that."

Raph's eyebrows shot up. "Leo. I don't hate you."

"You do a good impression of it."

He smirked faintly. "Come on. A couple years ago Splinter sat us all down and said 'hey, one of you is finally good enough to move on to a new step in their training. Only one of you has lived up to my hopes, so I'm sending him away to do all kinds of cool shit on his own.'"

Leo smiled at that. "Paraphrasing, but okay."

Raph shrugged. "Once you were gone? Me and Don and Mikey were on hold. Without you around, it was like he didn't even want to bother with us. We weren't supposed to fight. We weren't supposed to do anything." He met Leo's eyes, letting his bitterness show.

"We weren't anything, not without you. Mikey and Don put Mikey's goofy day job together, and Don picked up some work taking calls about computer crap. And what was I supposed to do? Mike's a dork who doesn't mind getting slobbered on by kids, and Don's smart. I was never good at anything but fighting."

"That's not all you're good at," Leo argued without much heat.

Raph smirked. "Maybe not, but there's no career in being an asshole."

Leo muffled a chuckle.

"We did our things and waited around, on hold, for you to come back. And you stayed gone so frigging long…"

Leo's face shadowed.

Raph held up a hand. "Hang on, this ain't about trying to make you feel guilty. You explained yourself, and you know I can understand where you're coming from."

Leo nodded after a moment, relaxing.

"Just, you gotta see where I'm coming from too. I didn't wait until that second year to become the Nightwatcher. I was him from the day you left. But the second year I realized it was all I was ever gonna be, and I accepted that." He shrugged. "Imagine the kind of freedom you came to love out there suddenly ending 'cause one of us showed up and started barking orders."

"I didn't--"

"Don't argue, Leo. Imagine."

Leo's mouth pressed tight closed, but after a moment he dropped his eyes. "Okay. Maybe I can understand a little."

Raph sighed. "Yeah."

"It feels like you grew up, and then got pushed back into being the same kid you used to be."

Raph nodded.

Leo studied him. "You know, I think Splinter's right about us."

Raph met his eyes, curious.

Leo shrugged. "We're a lot alike."

"Okay, there's no need to resort to insults." Raph fixed his face in a glare.

Leo blinked. His mouth quirked up.

Raph grinned.

* * *

Raph took to wearing his old trench and hat when he walked the roofs of the neighborhood at night. He knew Kate had told some people about him, and those people might try to catch a glimpse. 

Might as well make some attempt to stay mysterious.

It had been almost a week since Marquella Smith had been found. This guy was going to strike again soon, Raph knew. It was just a matter of waiting. Keeping an eye out.

Meanwhile, the streets below kept going. Life couldn't stop and wait, so the girls on the corner, the guys selling their drugs, they were out and about.

Crime itself didn't stop to catch a killer.

Raph ducked against the ledge of the two-story storefront he was currently standing on, watching a car pull onto the street.

Slow. Deliberate. No headlights.

This wasn't a patrol.

The car was approaching one of the stoops where a couple of dealers hung out. The men on these streets were wary, but so far they hadn't noticed the car.

Raph moved without thought, jumping to the awning below and waiting.

When the car was close enough, he sprang. Mid-air, he jerked his sai from his belt.

Ninja training meant he landed without even putting a dent in the roof of the car. At least there was no dent until he whirled the sai into an underhand grip and drove the daggered middle prongs in through the roof, easy as cutting through butter.

The car's brakes squealed, and curses came from inside.

Raph grinned, yanked his sai free, and leapt, spinning, from the roof of the car to the hood. These guys would be packing a lot of guns, but he faced the windshield with a sharp grin.

"Get off my street."

Weapons came into sight, but he was gone just as fast, jumping to the roof of the car and leaping up and to the side, back to the building's ragged awning.

He'd alerted the guys on the stoop, which was his whole purpose. Three of them had weapons in hand, moving down the steps towards the car.

The guys in the car weren't stupid. They hit the gas and peeled out.

They didn't get out a single shot.

Raph grinned. He braced himself and sprang up, back to the ledge of the roof.

"Man, what the fuck _is_ that?"

"Where you been, man? That is the fucking Nightwatcher."

He looked back from the safe darkness of the roof, raised his arm to the guys.

"No shit?" One of the guys lifted his gun, a kind of salute.

Raph jumped out of sight, crossing the roof and going on with his patrol. Grinning the whole time.


	9. Chapter 9

He met Kate on the street beside Chelle's building. The sun was just setting - she said to come early, and though it was tricky maneuvering it and he had to travel more through sewers than rooftops, he made it without being seen.

She wasn't in her car. She walked right into the alley, smiling.

He grinned when he saw her. Serious times, but she was the first human in a long time to look at him right in the face and smile and treat him like a friend. It was a nice thing to have.

Besides, that wide smile of hers reminded him of her mother, and years spent listening to loud African voices and wondering what it was like to be down there, part of it.

"I have something for you," she said, barely containing her grin as she held out a piece of paper.

"What's this?"

"You did give me permission to tell people what you really looked like."

Her frowned at her, and dropped his eyes to the paper.

It was a drawing, done in two different colored crayons. A wide, perfect circle of green took up most of the page. From the top of the circle was a small circle of brown, and two stubby little stick legs and arms.

Raph burst into laughter.

She grinned.

There was a motorcycle, like a bike with thicker wheels, beside the turtle-like thing. He laughed harder when he saw it. "How am I supposed to ride this thing if I look like this?"

She shrugged. "Who knows? Magic. I tried explaining you look more human than turtle, but you say _big turtle_ and this is what kids think of."

There were squiggly lines underneath the huge round shell of the turtle. She leaned in and pointed. "Apparently that says 'thank you Nightwatcher.'"

His laughter died down. He shook his head. "So who drew this?"

"Bug. Chelle's little boy."

His smile faded, but didn't vanish. "Oh."

"He was a tiny thing with big buggy eyes when he was a kid. His name's Roderick, but everyone calls him Bug. Probably always will." She shrugged. "He knows you're trying to find the man who took his mamma. That's why he drew that."

Raph folded the drawing carefully. "Tell him thanks, huh?"

"You could tell him yourself," she said, her smile hopeful. "Chelle's mother wants to meet you."

He hesitated. "I told you about--"

"Raph. _This_ is who they're expecting to walk in the door," she said, nodding to the drawing. "I think they'll be cool with you how you really are."

He unfolded the paper and looked at it, and a small smile touched his face. He drew in a breath. "Yeah. Okay."

She lit up. "Okay?"

He smiled. "Yeah."

"Great!" She grabbed his arm. "Come on!"

"Wait! Go in?"

"You're not gonna drag an old woman and two kids out here in the cold, are you? Come on!"

He let her lead him around the front of the building.

There didn't seem to be many people on the streets, and if they noticed the figure in the trench coat they didn't show any sign.

He felt almost breathless as they went inside. How many years had he watched the outsides of these buildings?

The chipped, water stained grey paint and the crumbling rusted railing in the stairwell might as well have been the finest décor in New York. He was entranced by all of it.

The staircase was narrow and dark, lined with little flecks of broken glass in the corners. Water-rotted floorboards were spongy under his feet.

It was perfect.

He followed her up to the third floor and didn't see another person, which was a relief. He felt the stirrings of nerves in his gut as she reached a doorway.

She glanced back. "You ready?"

He hesitated, but drew in a breath. Chelle's mom. He'd watched her for years. Watched her grandkids grow up. Watched her daughter die.

He nodded.

She reached back and tapped his arm. "Can't believe the Nightwatcher's shy," she said with a smile.

He straightened, squared his shoulders. "Shy nothin'."

She grinned. "That's more like it." She knocked on the door.

A wide-eyed little boy opened it after a moment. Small and thin and Raph knew the kid. He'd watched him.

The boy saw Kate and instantly looked behind her, and his eyes got huge. "Grandma! He's here!"

Raph bit back a smile.

Kate moved past the boy, fingers touching his head. "Come on, Buggy, give him room."

Raph wasn't sure how he made it through that moment without feeling awkward. He imagined what Mikey might do, and he grinned at the big-eyed boy. "So you're the artist who drew this picture, huh?"

Bug nodded, suddenly silent.

Raph crouched. "Thanks, kid. It's the first picture I ever got."

"Really?"

Raph nodded solemnly.

"You're really a turtle man?"

Raph laughed. "Yeah, I am."

"Can I see your shell? Turtles got shells."

Raph straightened, tugged off the trenchcoat. "See? Not as nice as the one you drew, but."

Bug stared at him. "Grandma! He got a shell!"

"Boy, if you don't stop pestering our guest and let him come in…"

"How strong are you?" Bug asked, paying no notice to his grandmother's voice.

Raph grinned. "Wanna see?"

Bug was shrieking with laughter as Raph strolled through the door, balancing the kid easily over his shoulder.

Inside the apartment was a tiny girl, smaller than Bug, sitting on the floor by her grandmother's legs. Her eyes were even rounder than his when she saw him.

Raph hefted Bug in one hand. "Someone leave this outside?"

Bug wriggled, laughing.

Raph's eyes went to Chelle's mom. He drew a breath, set the boy down.

"Aww, do it again!"

Chelle's mother had always looked young to him when he saw her from the roofs. But there were lines in her face, more than maybe should have been there given how young she really was. Maybe they were fresh lines caused by Chelle's death.

Raph nodded to her, respectful. "Ma'am."

She stood from the thready couch and approached him. "Kate says your name is Raphael?"

He glanced back. Kate was reclining in an armchair, grabbing at Bug as he passed. She smiled at him, confident.

He held out his hand. "Yes, ma'am. It's nice to meet you."

"Shandra." She shook his hand solemnly, not seeming to notice or care that he had three fingers to her five. "Kate tells us what you're doing for this neighborhood. We're grateful."

He smiled hesitantly. "Even if I catch that… " He glanced at the kids. "Uh, that man tonight, it'll still be too late. I'm sorry about that. Chelle was…" He shrugged. He didn't know anything about her except when he could see from the street. Still, that was something. "She was a real good lady."

"Yes, she was." Shandra nodded at the little girl. "She was trying to do right by her kids, which is saying a lot. Someone needs to do right by her now that she's dead."

"I'll get him. I promise."

She met his eyes for a long moment. He was reminded of Splinter, searching his sons during lessons, looking deep into them for signs of weakness or dishonesty.

He met her gaze.

She smiled faintly. "Thank you."

"Nightwatcher! Pick me up again!"

Shandra's eyes rolled. "Boy, if you don't stop acting a fool--"

Raph just grinned and grabbed bug by the shirt, hefting him easily. "It's alright."

Bug shrieked.

Shandra's mouth twitched, but she sighed and went back to the couch to pick up the little girl. "Boy's a half-wit, I swear."

Raph absently hefted him straight up, almost hitting the ceiling. He sent a smile to Kate.

She was laughing at Bug, but her eyes found him and her grin softened. "Thanks," she mouthed to him.

He wagged his eyebrows, and suddenly tilted Bug out of his hand.

Bug fell to his waist and he caught him easily with his other hand.

Bug screamed, sounding close to rupturing something. "Again!"

Raph laughed to himself. Should have figured the same kids who were so entranced by snow would find a big turtle just hilarious.

"No more of that. It's late, and that boy's gotta sleep sometime."

Raph set Bug down obediently. "Sorry, ma'am."

Shandra pursed her lips, but it looked like it was hard for her not to smile. "You tell me something, Raphael. Kate says you've been part of this neighborhood for a long time. How come you never came out before now?"

He hesitated. "Besides the obvious?" He gestured at himself.

Shandra tsked. "None of that. We got all kinds here in this part of town. Black, brown, yellow, even some white. I don't know why green should be so different."

His brow bone arched.

She stifled a smile. "Alright, maybe it was best we heard about you before we saw you. But now we know you're here you're not gonna hide no more, are you?"

"Well." He glanced at Kate for help. "I. Uh."

Kate stood up, coming over to him. "Raph. Shandra here might have told a couple of people you'd be coming by."

He blinked.

"Actually, there might be a few folks downstairs waiting to say hi." She shrugged, smiling. "Sorry."

"Sorry nothing." Shandra hefted the little girl. "Bug, come on. We gotta get downstairs. And you, Raphael - don't you touch that coat, you're fine how you are - let's go."

Raph hesitated. Shandra was already out the door, with Bug toddling after her.

Kate smiled sheepishly. "We set you up. Sorry. I figured if you were serious about hiding you could make it out the window."

Raph glanced over. He could, easily.

She touched his arm again, light fingers barely making any impression. "I was hoping you'd come down, though."

He looked back at her.

Wide brown eyes regarded him. Her lips held the smallest smile, hopeful.

"I promise nothing bad will happen. You've already made a few friends out here, even if you haven't met them."

He found it hard to remember responsible words when she was looking at him like that. He cleared his throat, but any argument dried up under his own instincts.

She seemed to see the moment he made up his mind. She grinned, bright, and squeezed his arm.

"Great! Let's go!" Her hand stayed on him, tugging him behind her to the door.

He followed her down the stairs, trying not to feel exposed and uncertain and….and strangely warm, actually…as she led him to the front doors and out to the stoop.

He froze coming out the door.

A few people.

Yeah, a big few.

The streets around the building were deserted. The street in front of it? There were kids standing all through the crowd. The painted faces of the girls from the corner. A bunch of the freestylers and the dealers from the stoops of buildings near them. Familiar faces, most of them, and a few people he thought must've come from streets nearby.

"Nightwatcher!" Bug came running up the steps before he could really register most of the faces, or could judge their reactions. He tugged at Raph's arm. "Come on and meet my friends!"

Kate leaned in and swept Bug up. "Give him a minute, Buggy. He's gotta meet everybody."

Raph turned his eyes back to the crowd. There were murmurs, some surprise, but from the looks of things Kate had definitely described him to most everyone already.

A voice, female and rough, called out from the middle of the crowd. "Dag, Katie. How come we ain't got no brothers around here built like that?"

Raph blinked.

Sudden laughter moved across the crowd.

A tall younger guy in a bulky jersey jumped up on the steps, turning around. "Hey! Ain't no turtle got nothing on me."

Kate laughed. "Shut up, Tyrone."

"Prove it!" the same woman from the crowd called out.

Raph saw who it was then, a larger woman with bright splashes of make-up. He recognized her. One of the women who walked the streets.

Tyrone moved up the steps and planted himself beside Raph, nudging Kate out of the way. She moved obediently down the stairs and turned to watch the show.

"Come on, T, you gotta work if you wanna top the Nightwatcher there."

"Green's got it all on you, Tyrone!"

Raph found himself tanding in front of more than two dozen people, beside a man who stripped his shirt off to flash his muscles, watching the children laugh with every negative comparison the women called up to Tyrone. Older people shaking their heads and smiling at the foolishness, and Kate watching the whole thing with a smile on her face.

"Hey Kate. You hittin' that?" The woman who started it all got a round of loud laughter going with that sudden shout. "What's he hiding under that shell?"

Raph felt himself go warm, gaping at the woman.

Kate set Bug down beside Shandra and moved back up the stairs, pushing the forgotten, scowling Tyrone away from Raph. "Shut up, Shug. You people got no class."

"What? I'd hit that."

Raph was pretty sure his face was completely dark with a flush. He wasn't entirely sure what _hitting that_ involved, but judging from the reactions Shug was causing he was pretty sure blushing was an acceptable response.

Kate leaned in. "Shug's got a thing for you," she said with a grin. "That makes you part of the hood, officially."

Raph found a smile at that.

Shug laughed when he smiled. "See? I ain't wrong. Man, Kate. I've heard of jungle fever, but damn."

Raph glanced at Kate. "What's jungle fever?"

When she told him he flushed so noticeably another round of laughter started without him having to say a word.

And that was how Raphael, after years of being a silent witness, finally met his block.

* * *

Her name was Cylenthia MacKenzie.

She wasn't a prostitute. She was a seventeen-year-old girl walking to the bus stop to get to her job at a fast food place. No one thought to look for her until the restaurant called wanting to know where she was.

She didn't have any kids. She was raised by a great uncle, Seymour MacKenzie, who was in the nasty end stages of diabetes and stuck in a wheelchair He relied on her to take care of him.

She was beautiful - tall, her hair a natural, full untamed afro. She was seeing a guy who lived just a block away, and it was him who found her.

Her throat was cut. Her work uniform was dark blue, and didn't show the blood too well. The grass around her did, though.

Raph saw her up close, as the neighborhood gathered. The police had been called, but he knew it would be a while, and he was going to damn well be part of the bad things along with the impromptu block party they gathered for him earlier.

He got to see her and the wound and the blood, the dead eyes and graceless cold-stiffened body, up close. No one even much looked at him as he stood there surrounded by the angry, frightened crowd.

Kate pulled up a few minutes after Raph arrived. She went past him to get a look at her, but turned away fast.

The anger on her face was so strong she didn't need words. But she spoke them anyway. "This is going to stop, and it's going to stop now."

There were muttered agreements in the crowd.

Kate moved back to Raph. "You think April O'Neil would come back down here?"

"If she can," he answered without doubt.

"Yo, Nightwatcher!"

They glanced over.

Tyone. The same kid who stood on the stoop with him earlier. He was standing beside the fallen body.

He was still scowling. "Any time you want to start helping us, go ahead."

Raph's eyes narrowed.

Kate touched his arm. "Hey." She spoke loudly. "Back off. He can't be everywhere at once."

Tyrone looked away, his throat working.

She glanced back at Raph, but shook her head. "We gotta do something, or these streets are gonna get real hot. We need help here, Raph, and I don't know who to call when nobody's trying to hear us."

He lay fingers on her arm, gentle. It was hard to see a woman who'd been so strong through everything starting to come unraveled. "I'll talk to April. We'll do what we have to do."

"She wasn't one of us, Raph." Kate looked away, her eyes bright with moisture. "I knew her. She was thinking about college. You know how rare that is on this street?"

Raph shot a look back, but the people were blocking her body from him. Probably best.

In the distance came the whining whisper of sirens approaching.

He turned away, took Kate by the arm. "Come on. There's nothing more to do out here tonight."

"I can't…" But her protest died in her throat and she moved beside him towards the end of the street. "I had this illusion that with a few whistles and some help on the roofs we'd be fine. But it's getting worse."

"Yeah. Seems like it." They slowed. Raph ducked into the darkness between the two last brownstones, in case the police drove past. "Maybe I can help."

"You are helping." Her voice was thick. "I wasn't trying to say you're not doing--"

"No, no. I know. But…maybe there's something more I can do."

She looked up, her face streaked with bright trails under her eyes. "Yeah?"

He nearly reached out to wipe the tears away. He started to. His hand lifted.

Then he realized what he was going to do and froze. His hand jerked back to his side.

He drew in a breath and let it out. "Yeah." He met her eyes.

"I think it's time I bring my brothers out here."


	10. Chapter 10

_Author's Note - Well, I'm settling one issue concerning Kate in this chapter. It's going to disappoint a few of you, sorry. :-) _

_But the second issue, the thing that's gonna bug Leo so bad, will come up next chapter. Oh, he's pissed that Raph's talked to people, don't get me wrong there. But that's just a precursor to what really gets him steamed. Which is something none of you have guessed yet. _

_Okay, since this is a story and not a game show, I won't quiz you anymore.  
_

* * *

Leo was going to kill him. 

Well, no. Maybe not. There was a good chance that Splinter's reflexes were still good enough to get to him before Leo could.

Either way, he was going to die.

Hell, after all the things they'd been through in their lives, death wasn't a new threat. Maybe he should be relieved to finally get it over with. To die surrounded by family.

Raph shook his head, banishing the thoughts. He was being stupid, and it was feeling a lot like cowardice, and that was the one thing Raph could never accept in himself.

He forced himself out of bed, forced himself to the door.

At least he would die for a good cause.

He smirked to himself and pushed the door open.

"Hey! Look who's up while the sun's still out!" Mikey saw him from the table, where he was chin-deep in a vat of cereal. He waved before shovelling in a spoonful.

Beside him, owl-eyed into a cup of coffee, Don sat. He lifted a hand when he saw Raph, but kept his focus on his drink where it was apparently sorely needed.

Raph moved in. "Hey, guys. Uh. Where's…uh." Damn it.

They were both looking at him already. Don's brow was lofted.

Raph cleared his throat. "Leo. And Splinter."

"Oh, man. What'd you do?"

He scowled at Mike. "Nothing! I just want to talk to everybody."

Mike exchanged looks with Don.

Don sighed. "He did something."

Mike pushed back from the table fast. "I'll get 'em. This must be good!"

Raph tromped to the table, too high strung to not feel grouchy. He glowered at the empty coffee pot. "What, do you drink the whole thing yourself?"

Don hummed.

Raph heaved a sigh, but the busy work of starting another pot was good for his nerves. It kept him from listening too hard to where Mike was and what he was saying and whether they were coming or--

"Raphael?"

Damn it.

He turned the pot on and turned. "Yeah. Hey."

Leo and Splinter must've been meditating or something. They were all slit-eyed and peaceful looking.

Which just figured.

Raph looked at Leo and felt a bite of something like conscience. Just when they started patching things up a little bit.

"You wanted to say something?" Leo moved to the table, putting a hand on Don's shoulder absently.

"Yeah." Raph hesitated.

It wasn't like him to hem and haw around things, but this was different. This was important. If he were better at talking, he wouldn't worry about blowing it so much. But he was bad with words.

He didn't believe what he was doing was wrong. Not in any way. Showing himself to Kate had been the right thing to do, and going along with her last night…he didn't regret it.

He regretted how they were going to react to it.

"Okay, here's the thing."

All eyes were on him. Mike was back at his bowl, shoveling cereal without looking down at it. Don seemed cautious, like he was just waiting for the moment when the fight would start and he could make his escape and not listen to it.

Splinter and Leo were simply waiting.

He hadn't thought this through nearly enough. "Okay. See. I. Uh…I met this girl, right?"

Leo blinked, surprised.

Mike dropped his spoon. "Oh, man! You got someone pregnant, didn't you?"

Raph glowered at him. "This is serious, clown."

"You _met_ a girl?" Leo's eyes were getting more focused fast.

"Yeah. Met her. I mean, she's seen me and she knows what I am. And everything."

Leo glanced back at Splinter. "Raph, you _know_ what--"

"Yeah. I know. I should have talked to you about it before. But it's not like I had advanced notice that it was gonna happen." Though he sort of did. "And it's not like every single one of us hasn't shown ourselves to someone now and then. Even you, Leo."

Leo's eyes narrowed. "You're getting this defensive, I don't think you just handed a purse back to her and went on your way."

"No." Raph drew a breath. Don't be defensive. Don't be defensive. "It's a real long story. Basic gist of the thing is, she needs our help."

"Don't they always?" Mike grinned. "Can't meet a human without them being stalked by mutant clams or evil scientists or something."

"Mike, knock it off." Leo spoke without taking his eyes off Raph. "Why don't you start from the beginning?"

Raph didn't. He couldn't. The beginning was years and years ago, and too personal to get into.

He was bad at words, but a little obfuscation wasn't above his abilities. "When I was the Nightwatcher I went to this neighborhood a few times. They're good people there, but it's not one of those places cops pay a lot of attention to. I was there…a couple weeks ago, and saw there was something strange going on."

He hesitated, looking up enough to check reactions.

So far so good, though Leo still looked wary.

He cleared his throat. "This girl spotted me there, and…uh. I asked her what was going on. And we met, and whatever. It's not a big deal. The important thing is, there's someone killing people in this neighborhood, and the cops aren't doing anything about it."

"That's where you've been going every night." Leo studied him, arms folded over his chest.

Raph shrugged. "I told you it was important. I thought…since it was a place I'd been to before, I thought I could keep an eye out. But it's too big, and whoever this guy is killing these girls, he's quiet. I can't be enough places at once."

Leo frowned, his brow furrowed. "I don't…"

Raph drew a breath, steeling himself. "What?"

"I don't understand why you didn't ask us sooner. Helping innocent people against those who want to hurt them is what we do. Did you think we wouldn't help?"

Raph blinked in surprise. "Um."

Leo was already facing Splinter. "There have been no signs of the return of the Foot. The Purple Dragons are decimated. We have the time and the space to deal with this challenge."

Splinter regarded him, but his eyes went back to Raph. "I too must wonder at your hesitation. Is there more to this story than you've said so far?"

Obfuscation was one thing. Outright lying right to Splinter was a little more tricky, and Raph didn't bother attempting it.

"A little, yeah. Just that these people are kind of important to me, and they've got too many problems already to have to deal with some creep sneaking around at night killing off girls."

"Important to you?" Mike blinked confused eyes at him. "Don't tell me you've got this whole double life as a human on the side."

"No." Raph drew in a breath, wishing Kate and Shandra could have kept the party for a later night. Then he wouldn't have to worry about confessing this. "But most of them know who I am."

Leonardo's face darkened. He stood up straighter.

Raph faced him steadily. Not ashamed. Not defensive. Not even apologetic. Things had gone how they did, and that was all there was to it.

But when his gaze shifted, he saw even Don - even _Mike_ - looked surprised.

That wasn't a good sign.

He deliberately avoided looking behind Leo.

But Splinter was never content to be ignored. "Raphael. Do you mean to imply that there are many more who know about us?"

"No!" He swallowed, looked back at Splinter. He nearly avoided wincing at the storm clouds in his father's face. "No, they know about me but not about you guys. I mean, Kate knows I've got brothers, and…but they don't. Everyone else doesn't."

"Raphael."

He winced.

"Okay." Breathe. He glanced at Mikey, as if his brother and usually most willing partner in crime might help him out. "Okay, yeah, they know about us."

Mike just looked back at him, mouth open.

"An entire, what, _neighborhood_ of people?" Leo was breathing through his mouth, his face twisted in rising anger.

Raph shrugged.

Splinter spoke after a moment, his voice tight. "These humans, the victims of this murderer, will not be punished for your transgressions. Tonight you will take your brothers out to find this man."

Raph let out a breath, tension leaking from his shoulders. "Thank you, Master--"

"After you show them where these things are happening, you will return here, Raphael." Splinter hesitated, his brow furrowed over his dark gaze.

Raph's relieved breath caught in his throat. "I..."

"You will not return after tonight."

"What?" He straightened. "Master Splinter, that's not fair! I know I shouldn't have--"

"That," Splinter said, his voice a whip crack, "is the very least of your punishments. You have put yourself, as well as your brothers and I, in danger. You have risked our safety and our future, and you only chose to inform us once you required assistance."

"No! That's not true! I never told anyone but Kate about you, and I know these people! They would never risk us. They wouldn't go to the cops if they _had_ to, much less call them over--"

"And how is it you came to know these people so well?" Splinter asked.

Raph stuck, stumbling for a moment before shutting his mouth without bothering to try to explain. His arms folded over his chest.

"I have tolerated dangerous behavior from you in the past, Raphael." Splinter's voice was low.

Leo and Don and Mike had gone dead silent, and weren't about to so much as shift a hand to remind Splinter they were there.

Splinter got dangerous when he got angry.

Then again, so did Raphael.

"But the very scope…the irresponsible foolhardiness of what you've done--"

"It wasn't irresponsible! I did it so I could help--"

"_You will not argue with me_!"

Mike jumped at the crackle of Splinter's voice, his chair grinding on the stone floor.

Raph felt his heart speeding up. It wasn't fear that shot through him anymore.

It was sheer anger.

"So, what? You're gonna put me on a short leash for the rest of my life?" He couldn't stop himself. All he could think about was showing his brothers his hood and then…just abandoning it to them.

Splinter shot him a look so full of fire it nearly made Raph's anger fall back. "Leashes are made for animals that indulge in dangerous behavior willfully. Perhaps that's what you need."

Raph's hands were fists, and he strode forward without even thinking.

"Raph!" Leo spoke finally, his voice sharp.

Raph didn't even pause. He didn't go to Splinter but his furious eyes never left his father's face.

"Try it," he growled as he moved. The anger behind the words made them pinched and low. "Just try it."

He swerved and stormed away from his family, back to his bedroom. He didn't even slam the door. He shut it and leaned against it and shook his hands out of their fists, and stared wide-eyed at the wall in front of him.

* * *

He made the jump from the two-story duplex on fourth to the caddy-cornered brownstone on his street, and for the first time since leaving the tunnels he let himself stop moving. 

His brothers made the jump behind him. Mike came up first, panting for air. "Wow. You know this city better than I thought."

It was the first thing any of them had said to him since that morning. He glanced at Mike. "I make this trip a lot."

Mike smiled, but glanced back and seemed to remember that he was supposed to despise Raph right then or something, and his smile dropped. He cleared his throat and looked down at the street. "This is the place?"

"Yeah." Raph's eyes went out over the block. Girls on the corner, dealers on the stoops. A few kids still out under the streetlights. It was Saturday, Raph realized with a faint smile. No school in the morning.

They'd be safely inside before ten, though.

He felt his brothers crowd behind him, and with a sigh he turned. He looked at Leo, though Leo refused to meet his eyes. "This street's seen a couple of murders. The rest are spread out over maybe a square mile. One in each direction, two north. If there's some pattern I can't figure it out."

Leo's eyes were on the street beneath them. "The three of us can patrol in loops," he said thoughtfully, as if Raph wasn't even standing there.

Raph cleared his throat, feeling his temper rising. "He goes after girls. I thought it was just the working girls, but the last one he killed…she was a student. A kid."

His eyes went back to the street.

The girls standing below wore their whistles. There seemed to be more of them than usual, and…

He froze, his eyes focusing below.

"Shit." He didn't turn to Leo, since Leo couldn't be bothered to look at him. "I'll be right back."

"Where are you--"

A leap down to the window ledge, and then he was on the ground in the alley. He moved, hesitant for a moment before he remembered he didn't have to be.

He wondered, grimly amused, what his brothers thought seeing him walk right out into the open on the street.

"Hey! Nightwatcher!" One of the girls spotted him and waved.

He grinned, waving back. Across the street a shout caught his eye, and he lifted a hand at the nod from the dealers.

"Hey, Raph."

His grin faded. He moved right to the girls and up to Kate. "Talk to you?"

"Sure." She let him lead her away from the others. "How'd it go? As bad as you thought?"

"Worse." He grimaced. "They'd be happier with me if I just marched in with a gun and shot at them all."

"Damn. Sorry to hear that. But…are they…"

"They're here. They're going to help." He hesitated, but didn't mention the rest quite yet. "Kate, what the hell are you doing out here?"

She blinked. "It's just another idea we had. We're trying not to spread out so much. Makes us easy targets. So a few of the girls from the nearby streets are coming here, and there's a couple of other spots where--"

"No. I mean…" He hesitated, gesturing at her.

She was in a skirt - a short one. Her curly hair was pulled back, her lips were painted red.

She…well. She looked good, actually. But she looked--

"You mean working?" She tilted her head. "You knew I did this. I told you that before I even met you."

"But you haven't been…?"

She smiled faintly, glancing behind her. She lowered her voice, led him a few more steps away from the girls. "I don't do it as much anymore. My mother's family takes care of my rent. But I need the money, so I'm still out a couple of nights a week."

"But…" He hesitated, leaning in. "Now? I gotta remind you there's a killer out here?"

She blinked. "Yes, now. Life's gotta keep going. I'm no different than these other girls."

"Yeah, you are."

She hesitated, but smiled. "No. I'm not."

He frowned, looking away from her towards the roof where he'd left his brothers. In the darkness he couldn't see their silhouettes up there, but he had no doubt he was being watched.

Her fingers on his arm grabbed his focus again. "Hey. Are you okay?"

"You could get killed out here," he answered. He turned back to her, aware suddenly of how she was just a shade taller than him - still not tall for a human - and slight in her short skirt and slip of a jacket. The sight of the whistle on her chest didn't do much to make him feel better.

Her eyes were still sharp, though, still determined. "Yeah. I could. So could anyone else. I at least don't have kids, or people who rely on me. I'm older than half these girls. Why not me?"

He blinked, surprised. "Because. You're…"

"No different, Raph. I'm no smarter or sharper than anyone else here. I'm doing what I've got to do, like anyone." She shrugged.

He shook his head, struggling to put words to something he didn't quite understand, but something that was beginning to eat at him. "You can't wait until we catch this guy?"

She hesitated, studying him.

Her eyes were lined with make-up, which might have softened their impact just a bit. Still, he felt uncomfortably exposed. Maybe because he didn't understand his own reaction, or because his brothers were in his hood, overhead, watching and resenting him. Or because…

He wouldn't be back.

He opened his mouth to try to put words to it.

Kate nodded behind him with a smile. "You've got a visitor."

He glanced back, and managed a small smile of his own. "Hey, it's my biggest fan."

Bug beamed, moving away from Shandra's leg to run to him. "Nightwatcher!"

Raph grabbed him, swinging him up over his head. Bug gave that high shriek that meant he was just amazingly pleased with what was happening.

Raph smiled at Shandra as he hefted Bug one-handed into the air. "Evening."

She scowled at him. "You've done ruined that boy, you know. Every five seconds he gotta say something about the Nightwatcher. Boy thinks he can grow a shell if he wants it hard enough."

Raph laughed. He lowered Bug until the boy was face to face with him. "But you're keeping my real identity secret, right?"

Bug nodded, as solemn as he could be flailing his arms and legs in the air. "Grandma says no one but us can know or else you might not come back."

Raph's grin faded. He set Bug down, and crouched. "Hey. You don't have to worry about that. But…you know, if you don't see me for a while, it's just 'cause I'm out there working. You remember that, huh?"

Bug nodded with a smile. "Okay."

"Alright, boy. Let's get you to bed." Shandra flashed a smile at Raph. Her eyes went behind him to Kate, and her smile faded. But she shook her head and left with kids in tow, not saying anything.

Raph straightened and sighed.

Damn, but this whole thing had been so nice, for the little time he had it. A big-eyed kid grinning at him like he was some cool superhero. People talking to him like he was in any way normal. Making him the butt of jokes the way they did to each other.

He turned back to Kate.

She searched his face. "If he doesn't see you for a while?" she repeated, brow creased.

He nodded towards the rooftops. "My brothers will have everything in hand in no time, I'm sure." His voice was flat, even to his own ears.

She frowned. "I don't get it."

He shrugged. "Things went worse than I thought today," he reminded her.

"But…" She glanced towards the rooftops. "What…"

He smiled humorlessly. "I think I'll be lucky to get out of the frigging sewers at all after this."

She blinked. "The sewers? Jesus, Raph, you don't live in the sewers?"

A little sincerity graced his smile. "It's not as bad as it sounds."

"In New York?" She shook her head, but it wasn't happiness that lit her gaze. "So, what? You're just not coming back?"

"I'm not allowed," he said, which was no answer.

He couldn't see not ever coming back, though. It was absurd for Splinter to ask it, and it wasn't something he could comprehend. He'd snuck out before, and he would again.

But not in any way he could promise to her. Enough to stand on the rooftops and look, like he used to. It could be enough.

God, it was only one night ago that he'd first met most of these people. He didn't have any right to miss something he'd only had for one day.

He let out a breath. "Look, I gotta go. Could you…just be careful? My brothers will be around, but…" He shook his head.

She was very still, lips pressed tight together. "Just when I come to expect having a giant turtle man around, too." Her eyes were bright. Her fingers brushed that warm touch on his arm. "I can't…Jesus, Raph, I wasn't ready for this tonight."

He hesitated. "I've still got your number. They can't stop me from using the damned phone at least."

Her mouth lifted, as if making an attempt to smile. "That's something. I'm just sorry as hell, that's all. I like having you around. You're….you're not much like the guys I'm used to."

He feigned a smirk.

She grinned at that. "You know what I mean. You're good to talk to, and…shit." She rolled her eyes as a little streak of moisture slid down her cheek. She wiped it away fast. "Man, Shug would never let me live this down."

He smiled, unhappily but sincerely. It was a nice surprise, a flash of warmth in his gut, that she counted him a friend too. He knew her life extended outside their talks and this manhunt for a killer, and it was nice to think he fit into it somehow.

She reached out suddenly. Her arms went around his neck, and her body pulled close.

After a startled moment he hugged her back. "I'll see you again," he said, though he wasn't sure where the words came from.

"Better." The word was breathed into his neck.

He shivered, just slightly.

He'd been right about humans. She felt too thin and soft and breakable against him. He'd always figured that he was too rough and blunt for anything so fragile as a human female. His hands felt too big along her spine, but the touch didn't seem to bother her.

And really, it didn't bother him either.

She pulled back, but leaned in again suddenly and pressed her lips against his mouth. So fast it was just a touch of warmth and soft pressure, then it was gone.

"Call."

"I will." His voice was odd.

"A lot."

"Yeah." He smiled. That felt odd, too.

She stepped back, smoothing her clothes with restless hands. "Okay. Now. You gotta get out of here before you ruin me for work tonight. And I'll talk to you soon."

She met his eyes for one last moment before she moved around him and back towards the group of girls.

He half turned to watch her go, but headed back towards the alley he'd come out of.

His brothers were right where he left them. Mike was perched on the ledge, watching the street. Leo stood with arms crossed, a scowl on his face.

Don spotted him coming and cleared his throat, studiously nonchalant. "Hey."

Raph frowned. "You gotta catch this guy. Fast. Tonight, or…soon."

"We might have done it by now if you didn't have to make a point to go down and reveal yourself to everyone."

Raph's nerves were on a fragile thread as it was, and Le's tone would have been enough to cut through even one of his better moods. He marched to his brothers, stopping right in front of Leo.

"_Fuck_ you," he said, his voice a hiss. "You gonna stand there and pretend that what I just did isn't something you've always wanted to do? Yeah, these people know me. Did you see anyone freak out or run to call the cops, or whip out a camera? These people are outcasts just as much as we are. They're _safe_."

He blinked back emotion strong enough to make his vision cloudy. "And I knew that going into it. You may not believe it, but I never put any of us in danger. Nobody but maybe myself, for all you care about that." He looked away from them, to the street below.

On the ledge Mikey watched him with wide, serious eyes. "It did look safe," he said, his voice soft. Wistful.

Raph nodded, just the slight show of support enough to make him gravitate towards Mikey.

He could have taken Mikey down, introduced him to Bug. He could have taken them all down, shown them how it felt to walk in a street in plain view of people. To be spotted and waved at rather than run away from.

He moved to the ledge, giving a last look down. Splinter expected him back faster than this, he had no doubt.

Not that Splinter could be any angrier with him than he already was.

Mike turned with him to look down. He spoke just above a whisper. "You okay?"

Raph shook his head. "No. This is _so_ fucking…" He stopped, mouth pressing tightly closed.

Mike glanced at him. "That girl looked nice."

Raph nodded. "She…" His neck felt warm remembering her arms there. His mouth felt strange, tingling and sensitive.

He dropped his eyes to his hands, wrapped around the edge of the cement ledge. "Shit, Mike, I think maybe you were wrong about me."

"Yeah?"

He breathed in. "I think maybe I have a thing after all."

"A what?" Mike blinked.

But he was more perceptive than his brothers sometimes gave him credit for. He looked back towards the street, then breathed in. "Oh." He straightened, frowning back at Raph. "Oh, Raph."

Raph turned away. At least Mike appreciated that it wasn't good news.

Not at all.


	11. Chapter 11

Mike came bursting into his room before Raph even knew they were back. Too soon, Raph thought even before he heard what Mike was rambling about. Too early.

"Just stay calm he's had way too much time to stew over this and he's really _really_ pissed off and if you just get pissed off back at him someone's gonna end up getting killed, Raph."

Raph blinked, sitting up from where he'd been lying on his back, stewing, for what felt like hours. "Mikey, what're you talking about?"

Mike shook his head, wide-eyed and breathing hard.

"Jesus, what happened? Did you actually catch the guy?"

"Didn't even see him," Mike breathed out. "But we saw enough."

"Enough?"

"_Raphael_!" It was a bellow, furious, from outside his room.

Raph's attention snapped to the shout and he stood, moving past Mike.

Mike grabbed his arm fast. "Hey. Just…try to stay calm, okay?"

Raph frowned, but pushed his arm off and went through his door.

Leo and Don were just coming in - Mike must've gotten so breathless from running ahead so he could make some attempt to smooth things over.

But if there were things that needed smoothing over that Raph wasn't already in trouble for, he had no idea what they were.

Leo saw him at his doorway and stopped moving. Don nearly ran into him, but skirted around the side and instantly headed for his own bedroom.

Shit. Fight coming, and Don wanted no part of it.

Raph watched him go, but faced Leo.

He was breathing a little harder than usual, and something told Raph it wasn't from exertion. His hands were tight fists, his shoulders squared and tense for battle. He even stood with feet apart, braced and ready.

Calm as he could manage, Raph smirked. "Something tells me you're unhappy."

There was a beat of silence, and then Leo lunged.

Raph darted away, surprised but not enough to kill off his reflexes. "Leo, Jesus!"

"You idiot! You dangerous, irresponsible _menace_." Leo stalked after him, eyes blazing cold and black.

Raph held up his hands, moving easily away from him. "Yeah, we've been over that part. You got anything new to add to the conversation?"

"Leonardo?" Splinter's door was open.

Leo barely even glanced to the side. "I've got a whole lot new to add, Raph."

"Leonardo!"

Leo ignored Splinter.

That in itself was enough to alert Raph that something different, something bigger, was going on here.

"Leo, what the hell?"

"I almost felt sorry for you, you know that?" Leo spoke through gritted teeth. "We had our little talk the other day, and you tonight with the kid and the girl and the noble words about never putting us in any danger. I almost bought it."

"Bought it? I wasn't trying to sell you any--"

Leo stopped moving then. He turned to Splinter. His shoulders were heaving with each breath. "We looked around that neighborhood he took us to. We went from street to street, as far as he said the crimes were being committed. You know what we saw?"

Splinter shut his door and emerged into the living room, silent, eyebrows lofted.

Leo turned his heated glare back to Raphael. "Criminals."

Raph blinked. He glanced back at Mikey.

But Mike wasn't there. He must have scurried off when Leo first jumped at Raph.

Raph's gaze went back to Leo. "Criminals?"

"The people he was walking around in front of. The ones who know all about us, who hold our lives in their hands!" Leo started towards Raph again. "I thought maybe when I saw you talking to that girl I was just wrong about what I thought I saw. But I wasn't, was I?"

Raph frowned, his eyes narrowed as he watched Leo.

But then, like a flash, he realized when Leo must have been starting to say. With a jolt that came from seeing the people in the neighborhood he knew so well described through someone else's eyes.

Leo shook his head. "This girl he mentioned meeting, you know what she is?"

Raph held his breath, chin lifting.

Leo didn't wait for an answer. "She's a prostitute. A _criminal_, Raph! Those men you were waving at like old friends? We stood there and watched them dealing drugs to anyone who came up. Even teenagers! Children!"

Raph folded his arms over his chest, breathing shallow and tight in his chest. He was starting to feel dangerous.

Leo turned to Splinter. "We went to a few streets, and it was all the same. These women, these young girls, whoring themselves out. Kids all alone playing in the street next to men who were carrying guns right in the open, doing their drugs! These are the people Raph showed himself to. These are the ones we're supposed to trust our _lives_ to!"

"Those are the ones you abandoned with a killer on the loose because you wanted to get back here and yell at me," Raph said, his voice low.

Leo whirled. "What? Are you insane, Raph? They're _all_ killers! How many people overdose on those drugs? How many people have been shot by all those guns sitting around? You kept watch over drug dealers! Are you completely gone that you don't realize what you've done to us? You tried to make us watchdogs so some gangsters and whores could commit their crimes in peace!"

Raph looked away from him, clenching his teeth so hard his jaw trembled.

"Those are the people who mean so much to you?" Leo just kept coming. "You think we should be surprised that people are ending up dead in a place like that? They kill each other every day!"

"They do, huh?" Raph's eyes were on Mike's shut bedroom door.

Couldn't kill Leo. Not in front of Splinter. Not with Mike and Don hiding out in their rooms.

"Am I wrong?" Leo was too close by then. "Tell me that. Am I wrong about anything I saw? Is there some explanation for the girls getting into cars or taking men up to their apartments for fifteen minutes at a time? Something else those men were handing out for wads of cash that wasn't drugs? I saw the bulletholes in the windows of the cars on that street. How many people shoot at them, because they went and shot at someone else first?"

"You don't understand."

"No, that much is pretty damned obvious. I don't understand the first thing about it." Leo turned to face Splinter again. "Sensei…we took up a challenge to help people I thought were innocent victims. Now…I'm not sure what our course should be."

Splinter's eyes moved to Raphael. "You have some explanation?"

Raph hesitated.

"Is your brother's assessment of these people inaccurate?"

He frowned. "Leo doesn't understand."

"What doesn't he understand?"

Raph stood for a moment, unsure how to say it. There was too much to tell. Too many years watching the same cycle hit those people over and over again, drive them further into the gutter. Take away more options from them.

He turned abruptly and went into his bedroom. On the little table by his bed lay a piece of paper.

He brought it out. He walked right up to Leo, though that was a dangerous thing to do with the air that hung heavy between them. He held it out.

Leo plucked it out of his hand and opened it, and looked down at the drawing Kate had given Raph.

Bug's drawing.

Leo's mouth pursed. He looked up at Raph.

Raph shrugged. "It's still a neighborhood. There are families there. Not everyone is a criminal, and…and even the criminals…" He sighed. "You don't understand."

Leo held the drawing back out. Dismissive. "Whoever drew this is going to grow up to deal those drugs, or work on the streets. Or maybe they'll get shot by some stray bullet or overdose on drugs before they _can_ grow up."

Raph searched his brother's face. "Every person we save is going to die of something someday."

Leo met his eyes. "But there are too many innocent victims of crimes. Too many people who obey the laws and need our help. We can't help all of them as it is. I won't waste our time helping criminals fight with other criminals."

Raph unfolded the paper and looked down at the round-shelled turtle and the little black motorcycle. He looked up at Leo, and past him to Splinter.

He hesitated, sincerely unsure how to feel. How to react. He didn't know what to say, whether to be infuriated at Leo or give in to frustration that they were holding him there, growing angrier the more they learned about something that was important to him.

He was worried about Kate, about what was happening without him there to guard his people. He was frustrated. He was tired of fighting, of keeping things to himself.

He felt like one of those electrical sockets Donnie used to use for his computers, before he overloaded them so much that they blew out in one white burst and were silent.

He couldn't explain himself well enough to make Splinter or Leo understand. He couldn't just go back into his room and shut the door and let things lie.

But what was left? He had no fucking clue.

"Raphael." Splinter, sounding more gentle than he had all day. As if he sensed what was whirring through Raph's mind. Which - Raph wasn't sure - maybe he could. Splinter never stopped searching his sons, and watching, and trying to understand them. Not even when he was as angry as he was at Raph.

Raph looked at him, blank, too much inside him. He was frozen.

Splinter's eyes softened. "My son, you should--"

The phone rang.

Raph blinked over at it.

Leo went over and picked it up, slow and moving stiffly. "Hello?"

His shoulders went back, but he turned and looked at Raph. "Just a moment."

Raph's paralyzed mind couldn't manage to grow any more worried or nervous when Leo held the phone out to him. Not even when he saw the grim set to Leo's expression.

He went over and took the phone.


	12. Chapter 12

His brothers followed him, but he didn't care. If that was the only way Splinter would let him out, fine.

He made the trip in record time, scaling and leaping and racing across the rooftops and down in the tunnels as fast as he could go. Not only to get there fast - after all, it was too late for speed to matter - but because he needed the sheer mindless physicality to clear his head. He needed to sweat.

He needed to feel something.

The cops were still there when he was within sight of where they found her body. He stuck to the rooftops, leading his three silent shadows towards the red pulse of sirens. He reached the closest ledge across the street to the crime scene and stood, hands flat on the cool cement. He looked out.

Tyrone was out there. Shug. A few uniformed cops asking questions that they wouldn't bother investigating further.

Raph dropped his head and let out a breath. Too damned familiar. Too many times. How could anyone let this go on in their city?

He felt a presence approach and stand warm at his shoulder. He didn't look, afraid it was Leo and he would say something well-meaning and horrible.

But it was Mike, unusually subdued, who spoke. "It was someone you knew, wasn't it?"

Raph focused on the yellow tape and the thick of the crowd. He couldn't see her body.

That was probably a very good thing.

"Yeah. I knew her."

Mike turned to him. "Raph, it wasn't…?"

Raph swallowed, and turned to him.

"Raph?"

They turned at the sudden, soft voice.

Raph pushed past Mike to the open door that came up from the building below.

Kate reached for him the moment he was close enough, and he hugged her without the slightest shred of self-consciousness.

She was shaking, and he held her that much tighter.

"I'm sorry," he murmured into her hair.

"Raph…" She pulled away, and when she looked at him he could see it wasn't grief under her tears. It was sheer, familiar, dark rage. "He got Junie, too."

Raph frowned. "Got…?" His expression darkened so fast he could actually feel it. "He killed her. That little girl?"

She nodded, wiping at her eyes with distracted hands. "I didn't know until a few minutes ago. I saw the police taking Bug…" She dropped her eyes, her hands finding his arms as if for support. "They took Bug. He was…he was there. He saw it. They found him right there, with his little sister and his grandmamma killed right…right beside…"

Raph held his breath.

His numb, emotionless state from an hour ago, from Leo's deriding him about the hood and the criminals he spoke so well of, was fracturing into sharp little pieces.

He swallowed, and it felt like glass in his throat. "I'll stop this guy, Kate." Aware as he said it that he had made the same damned promise before, and people were still dying.

She nodded, but her eyes went over his shoulder. "How? I thought…"

Raph didn't acknowledge his brothers yet. "If they won't let me leave our home than I just won't go back. I'll find him. Before another person dies, no matter what I have to do."

"Raph?" Leo's voice.

He hesitated, his eyes still pinning hers for a moment.

She nodded, slight and hesitant.

It was enough. He didn't move away from her, but glanced back over his shoulder.

Leo stood closer, watching them. His face was pinched in an odd way.

Guilty, Raph thought. Rightfully fucking so.

But he didn't bother directing his anger at Leo. Not this time. Not when it had a much better target waiting in the dark somewhere for Raph to find.

Leo hesitated, looking past him at Kate.

Raph didn't want to say anything. Leo denounced Kate as a whore and a criminal, and he didn't deserve to meet her.

But he spoke anyway. "Kate, these are my brothers. Leo, Don, Mike."

Leo took a step forward, awkward. "I'm sorry if--"

"I'm sure you did your best," she said quickly, her voice low. "Even three of you can't be everywhere at once."

_Especially if you're back home instead of out here where you should've been_, Raph wanted to snarl. But he bit his tongue and simply let his eyes pierce into his brother.

Leo glanced back towards the street, the cops. "I thought you said police weren't taking any interest," he said, his voice still mild.

Kate answered for Raph, sparing him having to find civil words. "Even they're not neglectful enough to not come when there's a corpse around. They'll ask questions tonight and we'll never see them again. It'll be written in some report somewhere as yet another drug-related incident, and filed away and forgotten about."

Don and Mike approached Leo, and Don spoke slowly. "Raph said there's been nearly ten murders so far."

"Yeah. These two make it ten. We're talking about a three month period. All females, all cut instead of shot. Left to bleed in the street. It's not drugs. It's not even close to looking like it's got any damned thing to do with drugs. But these women were hos and broke black women, and no one gives a shit."

Raph turned back to her, grimly glad to hear her anger rising again. In his mind anger was always better than grief, because anger could strike out. Grief could just sit there.

Kate marched past him, past the other three, to the edge of the roof. "Down there? That's a woman who lost her daughter to this same killer, and a baby girl who lost her mama. Now both of them are dead, too. There ain't nothing left of that family but one little boy, and he's gonna…he'll go to child welfare and end up a ward of the fucking state, and it's not right."

Leo actually answered her, drawing Raph's sharp gaze. "Maybe he'll end up in a better place than this, at least," he said.

Raph had to physically turn away from his brother.

Kate turned to look back at them. She held herself very still. "What does that mean?"

Leo frowned. "I've never been before today. But what we saw tonight…"

"Go on."

Raph smiled to himself grimly.

"…was criminal." Leo kept going, all his earnest boy-scout ways making him speak to express his feelings towards this low-class world. "It seems like most people here do things that…"

Kate moved a few steps towards him. "That what?" But she didn't let him stumble on. "You talk like that…do you know anyone down there? Do you have any clue what it's like for them?"

"Drugs and guns and violence; that's what I saw." Leo kept on digging himself deeper, though he had courtesy to look apologetic as he spoke.

He just couldn't stop himself, Raph knew. And the hell of it was, Leo wasn't cruel or dismissive towards anyone normally.

Everything in his mind was black or white. Everything was either allowed or illegal, and if it was illegal than that made these people criminals. And if they were criminals they belonged in jail.

It was stupidity talking. But Raph, now that Kate was there to speak for herself, had the distance to realize that Leo had no way of knowing better. He learned everything he knew from Splinter, whose world was so wrapped up in honor and duty that there was no room for lawbreakers or grey areas.

To Leo there was only right or wrong. He just needed to be shown an alternative.

But just as Raph couldn't see that when it was just him and Leo fighting it out, he also couldn't be the one to show Leo the realities on this block. He didn't have the words, and even if he did they would be too easy to dismiss coming from him.

Kate regarded Leo for a moment. "Okay. I give you that. There're drugs here, and people are packing. And obviously there's violence. What else did you see?"

Leo blinked. He glanced towards Don and Mike.

Mike spoke, his voice as soft and wistful as when Raph had come back from greeting her the first time earlier that evening. "Homes and families."

She nodded. "Yeah. Exactly. We're _people_ down there, and we're people who care about each other. Maybe Bug will get sent to some state-run home and lost in the system. And there'd be no guns there, yeah, but there won't be anyone for him there either. His family loved him. His mom…she left school for him. If he or his sister needed new clothes or the pantries were empty, she walked the streets like a lot of us."

Leo spoke slowly, feeling out his words. "There are millions of people out there who raise children without resorting to that sort of work."

She hesitated, studying him.

Raph wasn't sure, but he thought maybe she understood where Leo came from. That he didn't mean it badly, that he was sincerely confused by it.

Because if she hadn't realized that she'd have probably jumped on him. _Gone ghetto_, as they'd've said on the block.

She glanced at Raph.

He nodded, confident. She was smarter than she thought. She had a talent for words, at least.

Her eyes went back to Leo. "Come here."

He blinked, but followed her to the ledge of the roof.

Raph moved with them, hanging behind them with Mike and Don.

She looked out at the block. "Okay, look. Across the street, third floor. There's a girl I know, Jill, who just had a little boy. She's seventeen, which isn't young in this neighborhood. The man who got her pregnant denies it and always will. He ain't about to help her take care of her son. So it's just her and Marquelon - her son - and her older sister living there. Jill didn't finish high school, so the best job she's gonna get is at one of the factories west of here, or maybe some burger place nearby. But her sister's gotta work too, and they can't afford to hire anyone to watch the kid. So she stays home during the day. At night, once her sister can take care of him, she goes out and works the corners."

She looked sideways at Leo. "She breaks the law. Because there ain't a job for her near enough for her to get to, and there's just no other way to make enough money to live. Doing what she does she works five or six hours a night, goes home to sleep, and gets up in time to take care of her kid."

"I don't…" Leo shut up, though, and looked out.

Kate gestured towards the building, the window she'd pointed out. "Marquelon's gonna grow up with nothing. He'll go to school for a while, but give it fifteen years or so. After that if Jill's still alive and still got her sister helping her it'll be a miracle. Most likely, one of them girls is gonna be gone, and Marquelon won't be able to afford not to work. He'll get a part time job, and decide he likes the money more than the education. He won't finish high school. He'll work, and it'll be enough to scrape by."

She turned her head suddenly and pointed off to the side. Raph knew just the stoop she'd be looking at. "Then he'll look around and see the guys his age who wear new shoes every week, who have platinum jewelry and new cars. And because he's human and he wants to own something new for once in his life, and he's tired of watching his mom work herself to death and cry when she can't afford something he's asked for or the heat gets turned off again, he's gonna figure out what those guys are doing and he's gonna start doing it too."

She turned to Leo. "He'll feel old and angry and frustrated before he's eighteen. He'll find some pretty girl and he'll fuck her because he wants to do something now and then that feels good. She'll get pregnant and he'll get scared because he's got enough to worry about. He'll deny it was his and abandon her. Or just maybe he'll be man enough to own up, but he'll get thrown in jail or shot and still be no use to her. And the whole damned thing will start again."

She drew a breath, turning around to lean her back against the railing. Her eyes went to Raph, almost uncertain, before looking back at Leo. "It's been this way for decades. People here don't have alternatives. They don't get the chance for education, unless they're lucky - and maybe one kid in twenty gets that kind of lucky. There aren't jobs here. There isn't attention being paid from anyone outside. The guns keep coming in, and the drugs keep coming in. And that's all we see when we look for success in our hood."

Raph moved up, joining her beside the ledge. He studied Leo, and was grateful to see his brother lost in thought, indecisive.

"Some of them get out," she said quietly after a pause. "Some of them make it through high school, and some even get to college. Some get out of here. But most of us can't. And yeah, I can understand that you don't look out and see law-abiding people, but until someone can offer us an alternative, we do what we have to." She looked back at Raph and smiled faintly. "Just because hardly anyone offers to save us from this doesn't mean we're not people worth saving. It just…it takes a special kind of person to see that part of us."

Raph smiled faintly, almost proud. He reached out and put a hand over hers.

She returned the smile, her grief and fury pushed down, for the moment, by pride of her own. Pride in the block.

People doing bad things in a bad place, but…still good people all the same.

She turned back to Leo. "You can understand it, can't you? You can understand that there are traps that come just from trying to live the life you were born into?"

Leo hesitated. He looked out at the street, at the corners - deserted at the moment, since most people were down by the cops. The bodies. He looked past Kate at Raph.

Raph looked back, steady.

Leo drew in a breath. "Let's get this guy."

"Yes!" Mike grinned when their eyes went to him. "What? I can't be inspired too?"

Leo turned back to Raph. "But let's get him our way."


	13. Chapter 13

"Donnie? What you got?"

"There's a definite pattern here." Don studied the map spread over the kitchen table. "He goes in a circle, and he always ends up back on this street."

Raph frowned over Don's shoulder. "My street?"

Don sent him a look, but nodded. "Looks like it. He started here, north," he pointed towards the pins in the map as he spoke. "Then went east, then hit your street. Then south, west, and your street. And now he's doing it again."

"Which means?"

"South's next." Don gestured. "If he sticks to this, which seems pretty likely."

"I'll take your word for it, genius." Raph clapped him on the shoulder.

"Hey, guys. Get in here."

They straightened and moved into the living room.

Mike was holding a notepad, pencil tucked in the side of his eyeband.

Leo gestured them to sit. "I'm nearly speechless with amazement, but Mikey's actually got something."

Mike made a face, but cleared his throat. "This is the guy we're looking for: he's black, he's young, probably early twenties. He lives on that street Raph's so fond of. He's got a real job, he's smart, and he's got a past that involves beating up on a sister or a girlfriend or two. This is one angry dude, and I don't think anyone would be surprised when they find out he's the one killing people."

Raph blinked at his little brother. "Okay, what the hell?"

Mike grinned. "Come on. Half the shows on TV are about serial killers and profiling and stuff. You think I can't learn?"

"So you just made all that up?"

Mike frowned, wounded. "I did not. I deduced based on the nature of the crimes. Serial killers usually kill people of the same race, and they kill where they're comfortable they can get away without being seen. He's smart because he hasn't been caught, but he's angry and he's got a temper 'cause he uses a knife instead of shooting them. Knife's more personal."

"You got all that from TV."

Mike shrugged. "I'm right, don't worry."

"Damn." Raph smiled, impressed despite himself. "Look who's suddenly smart."

Mike beamed. "I was always smart. You're just unobservant."

Leo spoke before they could devolve the conversation any further. "Alright, so we kind of know who, and…" He glanced at Don.

Don nodded.

"And we kind of know where. All we have to do is keep an eye out over the--"

A throat cleared.

Raph glanced behind, and stood when he saw Splinter. "Hey. Where's Kate? She okay?"

Splinter came in, leaning on his cane. "She is resting. I believe the events of the night have caught up with her."

Mike grinned. "Uh huh. You told her our life story and she fell asleep, didn't she?"

Splinter regarded him, an eyebrow raised, before speaking again. "She did tell me about this man, this killer. This is something altogether new to you, my sons. How do you plan to seek him out?"

"We have an idea where to start," Leo said, standing and stretching his spine. It was late, and Raph was the only one used to still being awake at this hour of the morning.

"Then you need a plan."

"I have an idea, actually." Leo sent a sideward glance Raph's way. "I just don't know if everyone would agree to it."

"Do tell." Raph sat back, curious.

Leo hesitated. "Okay, since we're so sure this man actually belongs to this neighborhood, he won't stand out to us in our patrols. I think that's why you had a hard time spotting him before, Raph. And if we saw him last night before we…" He faltered and cleared his throat. "If we spotted him we wouldn't have realized it."

"So you must find a way to bring him to you." Splinter sat down carefully in the seat Leo had abandoned.

"Right. And since it's women he's drawn to, we need a woman to do it."

Raph laughed. "No way in hell."

"Raph."

"You're talking about bait. Uh uh, Leo. She's been through enough already. She's lost a lot of friends."

Leo hesitated. "What if I asked her myself? What would she say?"

Raph frowned, standing up. "That's not fair. Of course she'd do it. She's no coward. But that doesn't mean it's fair to ask her."

"Look, Raph. If she can talk to the other….the other girls, and make sure she's the only one in that part of the neighborhood, then this killer will come right to her, instead of us trying to sniff him out."

"No. End of story."

"Raphael." Splinter spoke suddenly. "The girl is determined and strong. I have spoken with her. If she is able and willing, how do you suppose she would react if you asked another to work with us?"

Raph winced, but his head shook all the same. "I just don't want it to be her."

"Why not?" Leo asked. "She's the best choice."

Raph hesitated.

He wasn't sure there were words to answer. If there were, he doubted very much he ought to say them. Whatever he might say would sound ridiculous out loud. After Leo's violent words about the kind of life she led - Leo's mind might have changed, but the words were still out there - and given who and what they were, it was absurd to even hint at the possibility of actually liking Kate in any real way.

But, as it was, he hesitated just long enough for them to get it. Because any real, lesser objection could have been spoken easily.

Leo's eyes were as round as Mikey's tended to get. Splinter was studying him as if he were a specimen that had just shown itself to be unusually interesting.

Don didn't look surprised, and of course Mike already had it figured out.

Raph looked away from them. "I don't like it, that's all," he said, way too late.

"Well." Leo cleared his throat. "We can, uh. Try and think of…"

"No, Leonardo." Splinter spoke quietly. "Your idea is best. Raphael…"

Raph frowned. "Yeah. I know."

Shit. He hated it, just the idea of it. Shit, shit, shit.

"You must have faith in yourself and your brothers. If this killer comes after your young friend…"

Raph could finish that thought easily enough. "He won't live to lay a hand on her," he completed, grim.

* * *

The knock that got him out of bed was so soft Raph imagined it might have been Kate at the door. But when he opened it Splinter stood there waiting.

Raph hated the instant nervous tension that rose inside of him, but he and his father were more than a little at odds lately. Just because Splinter was polite to Kate, and Leo had changed his mind about the killer, didn't erase what had happened.

But he stepped back and let Splinter into his small room. "Is Kate…?"

"She is still sleeping."

"Oh. Good." He leaned against the door. "I. Uh."

"Kate says it was her idea to introduce you to others in the neighborhood."

Raph hesitated. "She suggested it," he agreed, but he'd never been one to avoid taking responsibility for his mistakes. "She also gave me a way out if I didn't want to meet them, and I didn't take it."

Splinter actually smiled, small but there. "I hardly thought she was able to force you against your will. I do think that there are some temptations that can overwhelm common sense. The temptation to meet people who ask for you, after a life helping people unthanked…Raphael, I do understand the difficulty."

Raph sighed, sitting down on his bed. "I wasn't even thinking in terms of my own safety. I definitely wasn't thinking about the rest of you."

"Why do you think I became so angry?" Splinter sighed, standing over him thoughtfully. "Of all my sons, Raphael, you are the one who most aspires to be accepted."

Raph blinked. "I don't…"

Splinter smiled faintly. "When you were children, it was Michelangelo I feared for most. He used to draw pictures of the four of you with five fingers on each hand, wearing clothing like a human. But my concern for him was soon abated. He felt the longing, but he expressed it openly. He admitted it and dealt with it. You, Raphael…"

Raph managed a thin smile. "You're saying I'm not as together as Mikey?"

Splinter chuckled. "Not quite. Michelangelo works through his feelings. You simply feel them. When something makes you angry you express it. I've already spoken to you more than once about that."

Raph nodded.

"The same holds true for when you feel that inexpressible wish to be part of the bigger world aboveground. When that urge comes, you simply go up there. You wanted to speak to that girl, so you did. And that sort of behavior, acting on your first instincts without thought for possible consequences…"

Raph frowned and looked away, waiting.

Splinter finished softly. "It terrifies me, Raphael."

Raph's eyes snapped up at that, surprised.

Splinter studied him, quiet and solemn. "Instincts are strong, but they are fallible. One day your gut might tell you to trust someone who can't be trusted. I live in fear of that day."

Raph sat up, able to speak strongly though he knew Splinter was right. "I would never bring trouble on my family. I would never bring danger down here."

"That isn't…" Splinter hesitated. He sat beside Raph on the bed, and for a long moment he was silent.

"I find it hard," he said finally, a thoughtful hum in his words, "to imagine any kind of life without my sons around me. I can't picture my life without Leonardo's stable, solemn presence at my side. I don't have to fear for you once I'm gone, because I know I can trust him to fill my place. Without Donatello, our lives would be so much more confused and uncertain. He brings curiosity, intellect. He learns things about the world above that he can use to improve our lives. He has an understanding of things I can't begin to comprehend. Like those blasted computers of his." Splinter smiled.

Raph echoed it uncertainly.

"And of course, Michelangelo. How much duller would my life have been if not for my most expressive, most creative child? His gift for optimism, his sense of humor, at times have been the only thing to keep us all going. He ages me, but somehow he keeps me young."

Splinter sighed. "My children. When danger is upon them, I fear. I preach about inner calm, about rising above emotions, but there are times my fears have nearly consumed me. With every injury, every fight. Every time they leave my side and go above, there is terror in my heart."

Raph looked away from him, a pang in his chest like sadness, but from what he wasn't sure.

"I have thought about the possibility of danger finding us even here. It has before, finding us unawares. I'm sure danger might try to follow you as well, at some point. But Raphael, I don't want you thinking for another moment that my anger, my worry, about your deeds in this neighborhood of yours have anything to do with your brothers, or with my own safety."

Raph looked back, brow furrowed. "But…you just said--"

"I told you that you risked your family by revealing yourself, and that was true. I berated you for your lack if responsibility towards us, because I am aware that you won't be swayed by threats to your own health. But. Raphael."

Raph waited, his eyes on his father.

Splinter shook his head, smiling faintly. "Do you think that my fear for you is any less than my fear for your brothers? Do you think I'm able to imagine life without you more easily than life without one of them?"

Raph's eyes jerked away from him. Probably too late - Splinter saw everything.

The smile was gone from Splinter's voice when he continued. "Raphael, my most fearless son. My most deeply emotional. You push us time and again to jump into action where we might hesitate. You challenge us with your utter disregard for the size or number of our foes, and when we follow you into a fight, though we protest, we rise to the test the way you always seemed to know we would. We improve. We are better, Raphael, because you have never seen a fight we couldn't win."

Raph held his breath, his eyes lifting back to Splinter, uncertain.

Splinter's hand lifted, furred fingers resting under Raph's chin. "It's that disregard for danger that makes me fear so intensely for you. I regret that my fear expresses itself so easily through angry words, but like all of you I have my own faults." His eyes were dark, sincere.

"Though if I have truly led you to believe in any way that I would rest easier or be more contented without you here, that is an unforgivable fault that I would beg to remedy."

Raph hesitated. "You haven't…" But he didn't finish, because he had thought that exact thing more than once lately.

Splinter dropped his hand, nodding sadly. "There are things we both must work on remedying, then."

Raph managed a smile. "I guess so."

* * *

When they left Raphael's room, Kate was awake and sitting at the table. Mike, chef hat and apron in place, was waltzing around the kitchen creating an impressive mess and making her laugh.

Raph hesitated by his door, watching with a smile.

Splinter hesitated beside him. "Raphael. This girl."

Raph's smile faded. Heat colored his cheeks. Of course Splinter had seen it. Splinter always saw.

Splinter faced him before the two in the kitchen had a chance to notice them there. "Don't forget who and what we are, my son."

Raph frowned. "Yeah. I know."

Splinter sighed. "You invite hurt so easily. I must fear for you all over again. Though…" He leaned in, lowering his voice even further. A smile touched his face. "She does speak very highly of you."

Raph blinked.

Splinter chuckled and shuffled towards the kitchen. "Michelangelo! Is this chaos really necessary?"

The show stopped, but Mike's grin didn't face. "Chaos makes better eggs, sensei."

Kate looked over, and her smile locked on Raph.

He moved in, pushing away from his door with a small sigh. The world was just getting way too confusing for him. Just when he started to understand one thing, something else had to catch him off guard.

Kate spoke to Splinter when he pulled up a chair at the table. "Thank you for letting me stay overnight."

"You were kind enough to drive my sons back from your part of town, it was the least we could do."

She smiled. "Kindness didn't have much to do with it. I guess I was just hoping to have more time to help them plan out what to do next." Her eyes went to Raph as he approached. "Plus I kinda wanted to see where Raph called home."

Raph grinned. "Told you it was nicer than it sounded."

She made a sound of agreement. "This place is bigger than any apartment I've ever seen in this city."

Raph's smile faded. "Did Leo talk to you about his idea yet?"

She sat up. "No, I just woke up a couple of minutes ago. There's an idea?"

Raph sighed, but explained what Leo wanted to try.

And, like he thought, she didn't even hesitate.

"Let's do it. I can talk to the girls about staying away from that couple of blocks south of Beech, and I'll go out every damned night until we catch this guy."

Raph met her eyes, solemn. "You're sure you wanna do this?"

She smiled easily. "Of course. Anyway, even though I think Shug has some skirts that'd fit you, I don't think any of you guys would really come across authentic."

Mike laughed, setting down a plate in front of her. "Could we try it? I wanna see Raph in a wig and heels."

Raph glowered at him.

"Wig and heels? What?" Leo came stumbling into the kitchen, eyes bleary.

Mike slapped a cup of coffee into his hand. "We're gonna let Raph be our bait."

"Shut up, Mikey."

Leo was instantly more awake, the words better than any coffee. "Oh, hey. Good idea. Some lipstick, a nice little dress…"

"Shut up, Leo."

"He's already got that swagger when he walks."

Raph shut his eyes. "Maybe I'd get lucky and this guy would put me out of my misery."

"Sorry," came Kate's rather amused whisper.

He glanced over as Mike and Leo kept on about what color fishnets would look best on his skin tone. "Had to get 'em started."

She bit back a grin.

He studied her suddenly, since the others weren't paying attention. "You really okay with this?"

She leaned over and tapped his arm. "I'm okay, I'm sure, and I'll be fine."

Raph frowned.

"If it puts a stop to this killer it's worth it," she said more seriously. "Even if something happened to me."

"Which it won't," he said fast. "We'll be watching every step you take."

She grinned. "See? Why should I worry? What could possibly go wrong?"

He blinked.

Her mouth twisted wryly. "Did that have a 'famous last words' ring to it, or is it just me?"


	14. Chapter 14

It was quiet out there.

He knew it was deliberate - the girls were all on Beech or further north. There were a few old men hanging around a chessboard by the grass at the end of the road, but beside that the street seemed fairly empty.

Might not be a good thing - this guy they were after might see the strange emptiness and suspect.

But Raph didn't expect him to be there that night anyway. Shandra and her granddaughter were just killed the night before, and this guy usually let a few nights go between murders.

Just in case, Kate didn't tell any of the men in the neighborhood the plan. She called the girls she knew and told them not to talk about it with anyone - just in case. There were men Kate trusted, but she was willing to buy into Mike's theory that the killer might've been so successful so far because people trusted him.

At the moment Kate stood leaning against the street sign, looking bored. Raph was pretty sure it wasn't an act.

Dressed in that short skirt of hers, her hair down and curling and wild, her face painted more than usual - she looked the part.

She looked pretty frigging gorgeous under the street lights. She also looked small and alone and vulnerable.

Beside him on the roof ledge, Leo shifted. "Do you trust that profile that Mikey came up with?"

Raph glanced over and shrugged. "I guess. I don't think it'll help us much, though."

"Why not?"

Raph repeated what Kate told him when he explained what his brother had come up with. "Black, young, and hits women? It's a hell of a lot of men in this neighborhood. Just doesn't narrow things down much."

"Well, don't tell Mike that. He thinks he's a genius."

They hushed as a car pulled around the corner and moved down the street. The headlights were on, so Raph didn't tense much.

The car pulled up to Kate.

They were pretty sure the killer would be on foot, so Raph tensed but didn't move.

Kate smiled and leaned in and exchanged words with the driver, then stood back where she was. Taking a break, she was supposed to tell any johns who pulled up.

The car pulled off, and Kate glanced upwards towards the roofs.

Raph stayed low. She wasn't supposed to know where they were, so she didn't give anything away. Leo and Raph were sticking as close to her as they could get, and Mike and Don were across the street doing the same thing.

Kate leaned back, her eyes going back to the street, bored and hooded.

Silence fell.

Leo cleared his throat.

Raph glanced over. "What?"

"Nothing."

"Leo."

Leo hesitated, then ducked his head behind the ledge to regard Raph.

Raph kept his eyes on Kate, glancing at Leo now and then. "Out with it."

"You like her? I mean…really?"

Raph's brow lifted. "You serious? You really wanna know?"

Leo shrugged.

Raph looked back down at Kate. "I don't know. How'm I supposed to know what it's like?" He hesitated. "I know I don't want anything to happen to her. I know she's the first woman to smile at me like I'm normal."

"April…"

Raph shrugged. "April's different."

Leo thought about that. "Yeah."

"She's strong, you know? She doesn't apologize for what she does. And she'll fight for what's not fair." He glanced back at Leo. "And, actually, something she said when I first met her kind of keeps coming back into my mind."

"Yeah?" Leo watched him, serious, for the moment not getting that pinched, disapproving look.

"Yeah. She, uh." He grinned. "She said something about how I was shaped like a big turtle."

Leo blinked. "Raph? You are."

He chuckled. "But that's kind of it. I am a big turtle, and of course it's the first thing anyone would notice. But the way she said it…_shaped_, like it wasn't all I was. Like it was this physical thing that didn't say anything about anything else about me." He shrugged, looking back out at the street. "You know how people react to us. Like we're green and we've got shells, and that just tells them every damned thing possible about us. She saw it was how I looked and didn't assume it meant anything else."

"Huh." Leo fell silent, lifting his eyes back to the street.

And even though Leo seemed satisfied, Raph kept going. Maybe because he was still puzzling it out in his own head, and things said out loud were more real. If he tried the words, he'd know better how he felt about them.

"You know…I never got it. How Mike is about humans. Even you and Don talk about 'em now and then, but I never…"

Leo hummed quietly. "We just figured you were keeping it to yourself. Like everything else."

Raph glanced over. "Yeah, well. That ain't it. I just never got it. Just because that ooze made up human-shaped doesn't make us human. And the girls, they…" He shook his head. "I never got it, you know?"

"Okay. So, what? You get it now?"

"I think so." He smiled faintly, leaning on the railing as he looked down at Kate. "She…you know, she touches me." His face felt instantly warm, but when he looked over Leo wasn't laughing. "Just my arm, and she hugged me once, and…" His lips could still tingle to think about that quick little kiss. "But when she does, it doesn't feel wrong. Doesn't feel like I should turn away from it because she isn't…you know, green."

Leo frowned. "If we wait for green we're going to be alone for a long time."

Raph nodded. It sounded like a thought Leo had a lot.

He was surprised to realize he never talked about this with them. He'd always assumed he would be alone, and that was just how things were. But Don and Mike and Leo had hopes and desires in humans, and Raph wondered suddenly if the three of them weren't lonely.

"I can understand why you'd be interested in a human." Leo smiled faintly. "You've heard us talk, so you know I can understand. But…this particular human?"

"What about her? I just explained--"

"No, I mean." Leo gestured down at the street, where Kate was chatting with a couple of older men who had walked past her with grocery bags in hand. "It doesn't bother you?"

"What?"

Leo let out a breath. "Come on, Raph, you know what I mean."

Raph nodded. "You know it's funny. She told me the first time I talked to her on the phone, before I even met her, that she was a prostitute. But I met her and it didn't matter. I really kind of forgot about it until the other night, when she was out there working when I brought you guys here."

"It didn't bother you then?"

"Hell yeah it did. There's a maniac out here cutting girls in the throats."

"But this doesn't bother you?" Leo gestured towards the street. "She's breaking the law, Raph. And…okay, maybe that's understandable in some way, but…look at what she _does_."

Raph looked over at him.

Leo was as earnest as he ever got. "She…I mean, she…"

"Fucks guys."

Leo threw his hands up. "Exactly! She's with all these men. Hell, even if she didn't get paid for it, it's still…"

"What? Gross?" Raph smirked.

"Raph. She's a prostitute!"

Raph laughed, sharp. "And I'm a giant mutated turtle. Which one of us comes higher on the food chain in this world, do you think?"

"That's not the point."

"Sure it is. You think even if there was something wired wrong in her head and she wanted to get herself involved with a giant frigging turtle that we'd be able to…what? Fuck like humans?"

Leo hesitated, wide-eyed. "I. Uh."

"Yeah. You three talk about women like we're just funny-looking people. We're a different frigging species, Leo."

"But…what? You don't even want to…try it?"

Raph laughed. "I'm just getting over the fact that she was brave enough to kiss me in the first place." He sighed. "I don't know. If everything went perfectly and she was interested and…hell. Be worth a try, maybe. But considering I was planning on spending my entire life without a female even smiling at me twice, I think I'd be alright going without sex."

"But…"

"Leo, Jesus." Raph shot him a look. "Let's be honest here. She's a human, she's young. It isn't even going to be an issue. It doesn't matter how I feel, because even if I don't have options, she has a world full. It's just…never gonna happen."

"Huh," Leo said again, eyes on the street. "I'm surprised to hear you of all people…" He sat up suddenly. "Raph."

Raph looked out fast, but relaxed. "Nah, that's not a john." He smirked. "That's Tyrone."

He was in his usual wife-beater and baggy jeans, despite the temperature. Jogging up to Kate, he started talking to her, looking earnest.

Raph frowned. "Huh. I wonder if something happened. Tyrone's been helping with patrols and things," he explained to Leo without looking away.

Kate was frowning, looking over his shoulder back towards the street he'd come from.

Tyrone took hold of her arm, gesturing.

She moved away from the pole, going with him.

"What the hell is she doing?" Leo whispered.

Raph frowned, watching.

Kate glanced back towards the roof, and her hand came up and toyed with the whistle hanging at her chest.

Raph shot up. "That's the signal."

"You said that wasn't--"

"Fuck." Tyrone? Raph's thoughts moved fast. "Didn't Mike say it was someone from the neighborhood? None of those women ever blew those whistles. They fucking trusted him." He perched on the roof.

Kate and Tyrone were heading across the street at a quick pace.

Don and Mike had probably seen her signal, but Raph gestured anyway. "Leo, come on!"

They bounded down to the closest fire escape, and Raph jumped to the ground and hit lightly.

Tyrone never glanced back. He was talking to Kate, more relaxed the further she went with him.

Fuck. Raph was going to happily kill Tyone if he was the killer. He was part of this street. He should have _known_--

Kate gave a fleeting glance back as Tyrone led her between a couple of apartment buildings. She didn't turn far enough to see Raph and Leo darting across the street behind her.

Raph looked up and saw the shadows of his brothers moving over the ledge above where Tyrone had take her.

He moved, fast and silent, past the empty stoops of a couple of buildings before he found the right one. He hesitated, listening, but he couldn't make himself wait to hear for a sign of what was happening. He peered around the side.

Then he jumped right into sight, stepping into the alley.

"You son of a bitch!" Kate was grabbing his arm with both her small hands, holding off his fist and the glint of metal it held.

Knife.

"Relax, honey, this ain't gonna hurt for more than a minute."

_Fucker. _

"Tyrone!" Raph charged towards them.

Tyrone had lived on the block all his life - his reflexes were good. His hand snaked out and wrapped around her wrists, spinning her into him. "What the fuck are you doing here?"

Raph didn't look at her. Couldn't. He locked eyes with the scowling young man he'd seen at her side more than once. "What do you think?"

Tyrone smirked, but his eyes were bright. Wild. "I thought you fucked off when you couldn't catch me."

Raph didn't glance back. Tyrone didn't know about his brothers, and Leo must've stayed in the shadows around the building. "Well, now you know better. Let her go, T. This is over."

"Son of a bitch." Kate's voice was a hiss. "You fucking…"

"Shut up, Kate." Tyrone's knife was tight in his fist, but so far he just held it near her face.

"He said Shug had been hurt," Kate said, her eyes blazing with fury as she looked at Raph. "But I talked to her earlier, and she's on Long Island this weekend. I knew as soon as you said that, you fucking piece of--"

"I said shut up, bitch." Tyrone's arm jerked.

Kate's words cut off with a gurgle.

Raph's hands tightened into fists. Keep him talking, Leo would've said. Keep him talking. "So what the hell, Tyrone? You just snapped one day and decided to start killing people?"

"You don't know shit about me, Nightwatcher. You don't know shit about this life. You come here and jump around on roofs and think you got any idea?"

"Then tell me," Raph said, but his teeth were grinding together and he was going to lose his patience really, really fast.

"Tell you what? This place is a fucking pit. It's a landfill, and it's these bitches here that fuck things up for everybody."

Kate grabbed his arm. "Fuck you, Tyrone!"

Raph could see the charge in his eyes when she spoke. "Kate. Not the time, okay?"

She glared across at him.

He met her eyes for just a flash before he looked past her at Tyrone. "So what's so bad about the women here?"

"They ain't nothing but hos and bitches," Tyrone growled out. "Fuck anyone with a dollar, and pop out these fucking babies they don't take care of. We all fucking broke here 'cause they can't keep their fucking legs together."

"You knew Chelle!" Kate struggled in his arms. "You went to school with her!"

"Yeah? And that bitch fucked around until she popped out that kid of hers, and took her ass onto the street corner like the other hos."

"Those kids," Kate retorted, her face wild. "You met her daughter, didn't you, you piece of--"

"Kate!" Tyrone and Raph spoke at the same time.

Kate glowered.

The wide blade in Tyrone's hand swept closer to her face.

She clamped her mouth shut, her eyes round.

Raph moved in.

"Come on, Nightwatcher. You can watch this bitch die."

He stopped, glaring at Tyrone. "You killed a baby girl, Tyrone. How you gonna justify that?"

Tyrone curled his lip. "That bitch came from a whore who came from a whore. I'm just putting an end to the fucking cycle."

A flash of motion above caught Raph's eyes, but he resisted looking. There were landings around them, and Mike and Don were more than skilled enough to move down without Tyrone hearing. Leo, too, was probably somewhere even Raph wouldn't think to see him coming.

Raph kept his eyes fastened on Tyrone. "You know it's over now. You can't kill both of us. Put the knife down."

Tyrone's eyes flashed. "Why should I? You think I want to go back to jail?"

"I don't give a shit what you want," Raph growled. "That's where you're going. If you're lucky. Let her go."

Behind Tyrone there was movement, and Raph's eyes caught a flash of a long blade. Leo.

How the hell he'd ended up behind him was anyone's guess, but it made Raph more confident.

"Put the fucking knife down. You don't want to go back to jail? Fine, I can kill you right here."

Tyrone barked out a laugh. "Please. You think I'm scared of the fucking Nightwatcher?"

Raph smiled grimly. "Okay, big man. How about four Nightwatchers?"

Don and Mike were good with cues. They jumped, hitting the ground on either side of Tyrone at the same time.

Tyrone jumped, thrown off balance.

Kate was fast, shoving at his arms and snaking out of his grasp. She dove away from him and fell, but she was safe.

Raph grinned, drawing his sai. "What you gonna do now, T?"

Tyrone spun around.

Leo stood, katana stretched out to close it nearly brushed Tyrone's chest. He smiled grimly.

Tyrone turned back, his eyes bright with fear and anger. He took a step towards Raph.

Don's bo came down, a crack so quick it was just a blur of movement, but when it was done the knife was on the ground and Tyrone was howling, holding his wrist against his chest.

Mike moved in and planted a foot against his back, sending him sprawling to the ground.

"Huh. That was a little too easy," he said with a disappointed frown, standing over Tyrone.

Raph smirked. He looked over at Kate, who had picked herself up and stood with hands in fists, staring at Tyrone. "You okay?"

"Fucker." She glowered, but her eyes came up. She met Raph's eyes and nodded. "Okay."

"So what now?" Don looked to Leo.

Tyrone wasn't moving, but he was still conscious.

"You guys have to get out of here." Kate tugged her cell phone out. "I'll call the cops."

"We can't just leave you here with him."

Kate's eyes went down to Tyrone. "So knock his stupid ass out."

Raph grinned. Woman after his own heart. "Hey. Take it easy."

A rush of adrenaline was still making her wide-eyed. "Better yet, pick him up and let me do it. Cops gotta think I stopped him myself, right?"

"Fuck you. Cops are gonna know what--"

Raph was crouched by Tyrone fast, staring into his face. "What? Cops are gonna know you got stopped by giant turtles? Good luck, asshole."

"Come on. Pick him up and let me take a shot."

"Fuck you, bitch."

"Shut up, Tyrone." Raph's patience with the man was wearing really fucking thin.

"We'll tie him up, Kate. He'll behave." Leo regarded Tyrone. "Won't you?"

"Or what? The bitch is gonna suck my cock? That's all she's good for any--"

Raph grabbed him by the shirt and hauled him to his feet. "Mike?"

Mike moved behind him and grabbed his arms. "Come on, Katie. Show him what you've got."

She grinned at them and handed her phone to Raph. She shook her arm out, regarding Tyrone. "Gonna say something now, asshole?"

"Fuck you."

"Good enough." Her arm shot back and slammed forward.

Tyrone dropped when Mike released him and didn't move.

"Think there's a black woman in this hood who can't throw a punch?" She held out her hand.

Raph, grinning, gave her the cell phone.

"Thanks. Ouch." She flexed her fingers with a wince. "Alright, guys, better get out of here."

"You'll be alright?"

"She'll be fine, Raph." Leo smiled at Kate. "Good work."

Her grin was getting shakier by the second, as the rush of adrenaline started crashing. "Yeah. Yeah, thanks. You too."


	15. Epilogue

"Mike?"

"Not yet. Still a bunch of senators yelling at each other or something."

Leo grinned and shooed Don from the counter. "You burn popcorn. Let me make it."

"I do not _always _burn…" Don hesitated. "Fine. You do it, I'll go sit on my butt with Mikey."

Leo rolled his eyes and took over the careful stove-top preparations.

Raph couldn't stop a grin, though he wasn't particularly in the mood to smile. "You know he burns things just to get out of cooking."

"Yeah." Leo shrugged. "It works. That's why he's the smart one."

Raph sighed and drummed his fingers on the table absently.

"Did Kate tell you how things went today?"

"I haven't heard from her." Raph spoke flatly, staring at the table. "And I don't plan to."

"What? Since when?"

"Since Tyrone pleaded guilty. Since she doesn't really need us anymore."

Leo shot him a look. "That's dumb, Raph."

"Screw you, Leo."

"She'll call. You know she will."

"She won't." Raph glowered at the same spot on the table. "Why would she?"

"Because she liked you."

"Oh, fuck off."

Leo raised his hands. "Fine. Forget it. You're gonna come watch, right? April said they got some great footage."

Raph grimaced. He knew he'd go watch, of course. It was closure in some small way.

Still, he didn't need Leo being all chirpy about it. Jesus.

"Hey, Raph?"

His glower rose to a more fitting target than the table.

Leo's smile was gone. "Can I ask you something?"

"You will either way."

"True. So…what was it about that neighborhood? You've really been going there for years? Just looking at that street? I just…why?"

Raph hesitated. He stood up, and lay his hands on the top of the chair after he pushed it in. "At first? It was the kids."

Leo turned to him, listening.

Raph shrugged. "I saw them playing by a fire hydrant someone had opened. They were loud and they cursed and they were dark-skinned, and they were different than the kids we see uptown. All the people there are different. I just…when I thought about being topside, about fitting in somewhere in the human world, I felt like I'd fit in there. Better than anywhere else. I guess…I guess that's it."

"Okay, wait. Why would you want to fit in there?" Leo raised his hands fast before Raph could yell. "Don't get angry, it's just…you have to admit life would be a lot easier in most any other part of this city."

"Maybe. But I think an easy life would bore me." Raph smiled faintly. "You know…the men around that block. People from outside call them criminals and thugs and gangsters. You know what they call themselves?"

Leo shook his head.

"Soldiers. Like they're caught in a war zone and protecting their own." He shrugged. "I could see myself there."

Leo hesitated. After a moment quietly regarding Raph, he nodded. "Okay. Maybe I can understand that after all."

"Hey! Guys! I think it's coming up!"

Raph moved to the door, Leo right on his heels.

"In other news, the end of a tragic story in East New York came today with a guilty plea and an unusual protest. April O'Neil was there. April?"

Mike and Don leaned in that little bit they always gave when April appeared on screen.

"Laura, I'm standing in front of the Kings County Courthouse, where earlier today Tyrone Gardiner pleaded guilty to ten counts of murder and one count of attempted murder. This marks the end of a long few weeks in East New York, where despite finding the bodies of several young girls, sometimes on the same street, police refused to listen to reports of a serial killer."

The TV showed a clip of Tyrone being led into the courthouse by cops. Scowling like he always was.

"Prick," Raph muttered.

"Gardiner managed to murder ten women, one of those a fourteen-month-old girl, without ever attracting the attention of Brooklyn authorities. We can only imagine how many more lives he might have taken if not for this woman."

Raph held his breath as Kate appeared, again through earlier footage. She was standing on the same steps April was now in front of, speaking into a microphone.

"Kate Fadillah was supposed to be Gardiner's eleventh victim. Instead she was able to overpower her attacker and call police, leading them to the suspect and the knife they were able to match to the bodies of the other ten victims."

The scene flashed back to the two vapid anchors behind their little news desk. "April, I understand the people of East New York held a protest at the courthouse today."

April appeared again. "That they did. Angry over so many deaths, and so many ignored calls for help, it was Kate Fadillah herself who led the protest."

They showed footage from earlier. This time they put in the sound, and Raph watched in silence as Kate spoke. Behind her was most of the neighborhood. Kids, adults. An old man in a wheelchair. On his lap, Bug.

"We're here," Kate was saying, "because we want to show the world what it's ignored. Every single person behind me lost someone in the last two months. Mothers, daughters. Sisters. Cousins, school friends. The women killed in my neighborhood meant something to every one of these people."

The camera focused on Bug. _Family killed by East New York Killer_, read words that appeared below him.

Kate was reading from a wrinkled piece of notebook paper, and Raph could see in her face how nervous she was. "To borrow from Muhammad Ali, the people behind me are America. We are the part you won't recognize. We might be black, and poor, and the women who were killed might have done some wrong things in their lives. But standing here we're families in mourning. We're orphans, we're parents who have buried their children. We're kids who don't understand why our friends aren't there anymore. We loved our sisters, and we buried them. Anyone out there who has ever cared for a woman should recognize us now."

The picture flashed back to the anchors behind their desk. The woman spoke with a practiced frown. "Borough President Marty Markowitz, who originally gave a statement denying reports of a serial killer in East New York, has changed his tune considerably since the arrest of Tyrone Gardiner."

She kept going, but Raph tuned her out. He sat back, and realized there was a small smile on his face.

He pushed it down. Kate looked great, sure. And she spoke well. And things all worked out in the end, as much as they could for a neighborhood that lost so many people.

But…that was closure. That was an ending. He was pretty sure there was nothing about that worth smiling about.

"Man, she was great!" Mike turned to Raph when the station switched to commercials. "Wasn't she great?"

Raph shrugged.

"I liked what she said about how they were still America. 'The part you won't recognize.'" Leo smiled faintly. "Even the parts of the city that get ignored still belong."

"Even the parts that live in sewers?" Don completed with a smile.

Leo shrugged. "It's true."

"Hey, Raph, she's gonna come by sometime, right? I wanna hear all about how that Tyrone creep cried like a baby when the cops picked him up."

Raph stood up. "Forget it, Mike. Move on."

"Say what?"

Leo answered. "Raph's being cynical."

"I'm being realistic. Even Splinter told me to remember what we are and not set myself up to get hurt." Raph turned back to face his brothers. "Just let it go."

Three faces looked back at him, dubious.

Raph sighed. "I don't--"

The phone rang.

He blinked over at it.

Leo grinned in triumph. "Ha! I knew it!"

"Raph was wrong," Mike sing-songed. "Raph was wrong."

Tromping to the phone, Raph shot Leo a smirk. "Forget about something in the kitchen?"

Leo shot to his feet. "Damn it, the popcorn!"

"Leo! You didn't burn the popcorn, did you?"

With the loudmouths suitably distracted, Raph picked up the phone mid-ring. He held his breath, and with his face safely out of the sight of his brothers, he smiled.

"Hello?"

* * *

end 


End file.
